


Blue/Jacket

by graspthesanity



Category: Arctic Monkeys, Last Shadow Puppets, The Kills
Genre: Alex Turner is your go-to dream twink, Fortune Telling, M/M, Trans!Miles, Transphobia, discussions of fate and dreams, one for the road jacket
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-07-21 22:17:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 32,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7407292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graspthesanity/pseuds/graspthesanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he was a child, Miles used to dream of a man wearing a leather jacket. Two decades later, Miles meets his new neighbour, who bears a striking resemblance to the man in his dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

I don’t know why he’s here.

And he looks back at me, just as confused at me and holding a painting in his hand and in that leather jacket with One For The Road written on it with something else written below it and I can see how shaved the back of his head is, how his hair is styled in a quiff and how he looks at me, a look which every year I change my opinion on.

At first, it’s normal, I’m attracted to a man,

but it changes at least in the eyes of many people when I put on the binder and people comment on how flat I get and they ask me, why do I look like a man

and those who have some sense in their heads, they just say ‘oh’ and their mouth stays like that

and I can still recall him,

maybe this year it’s different

I can’t recall anything but something soft in his eyes, so many years ago, I just know the stories that the man in the leather jacket had inspired me to draw. We didn’t talk, we just stood side by side and I got pissed that my sketch or whatever the fuck that was, wasn’t praised and that I had gotten mad and he just watched me, he sat besides me as I drew as the lady went on to look at other’s children’s art

it was like some art school test which I’d take many years later with my mom trying to do something with my hair and I’d hiss too loud and then apologize.

I’d apologize.

Fuck, I’d apologize even to myself for wondering where would the man be, his eyes focused on my scribbles. 

Then I come out as gay. Simple, right? Gay trans man, I take two letters from LGBT, but no, if I am transitioning why do I not go for women, wouldn’t it be simpler to “stay” a girl and use my vagina and of course, the argument

children.

For the love of fuck. No. Not now and frankly, I’m not even sure anyone would want children with me.

I’ve tried sketching him, I’ve tried and I’ve stopped, scared, trembling that I’d get him wrong and the image would disappear from my head. 

He’d vanish.

I’d even try to recreate his haircut at a barber’s just to get told it’s a man’s haircut and regret having the hair way too damn short, yet not many kronen were spent and nachos were bought on the way back. In the end I was given a shorter haircut and heading to Willy’s still seemed victorious. I felt lost, trying not to think too much of the fact that I had to actually call the doctor even if I’ve had enough T injections on me for the next few weeks. 

Sometimes I wondered how much should I discard of him, but then the paranoia of a new city seemed to dazzles me as sometimes I just sit in T-Centralen wondering why the fuck do I live so much up north with lakes with ducks which never leave and I leave not even remembering that I could’ve picked up some Ben’n’Jerry’s at Hemköp. 

I still count everything in my head and still translating even the minor things as I look right to choose a bigger grädfil and I see him. 

With the jacket, the neatly shaved back of the head.

He’s got a scarf around him, his quiff intact and eyes nearly fully sleepily closed, the leather jacket opened though, the letters a bit rubbed off on the back, not as clear as in my head-

And he glances at me, his dark eyes not catching anything and he’s a bit shorter than I am. I don’t grab the grädfil, still staring at him as he just grabs the Russian kefir and turns around, not even with a cart. 

It’s minus and he’s in the leather jacket and I think I’ve shivered enough and I just stare at him, I walk behind him, my cart nearly empty and he doesn’t bother to look back and I can’t see to wake up from my nightmare gone wrong, as he still walks past the isles, past the press with Princess Victoria and the one brand of Swedish condoms. I watch him pay and I don’t even say hej, praying that I’ll manage to follow him and I just make a dash to the further exit to do self-check out in a second and when I walk out he’s there with a fag between his lips. His dark eyes focus on me and I didn’t button up anything and I get reminded on how I’m sure I don’t look attractive at all with something like a bad stubble never really shaved off properly and the haircut just done because I wanted something masculine, but he doesn’t bat an eyelash. 

My voice didn’t even break properly and I’ve regretted refusing voice therapy and every time I feel quiet and sad instead of asking. I still feel guilty for what I am doing with transmen being nonexistent and the world applauding Jared Leto’s nomination. My fear closes my eyes and triggers me to even to talk to someone who is giving me a taste of deja vu which becomes bitter with fright. 

I’m a different class, I have the risk of getting a straight man who will see me as a woman or someone in the queer zone who will also see me as a woman. Women portray transmen, I’m seen as a drag and no one cares, people are too busy thinking that other discrimination is worse. People are daft.

I want to touch his arm, but I don’t know how to approach. I just follow him, hoping that deja vu will steal lead me somewhere with him. I don’t even recall his name.

How do you ever converse with people? After I realized who I were I just isolated in my room, reading and watching everything I could and after school I’d bind my chest to make sure to take it off once my parents would arrive. I had no knowledge, I thought the best I could get was an erect dildo in my pants.

I keep walking, the face of Jared Leto haunting me with all the unheard trans voices including my own and he turns around, the box of kefir opened already. 

I don’t realize that I’m already home, a name I had already stuck to this place because I am far too clingy to anything which doesn’t call me a woman for the first five seconds. He opens the door and I can’t help but feel as if I am in a fairytale, it’s not even that I don’t know who he is, I don’t, fine, but I know where I’ve seen him. I keep looking at him and I try to guess his age but nothing besides twenties gives out any hints and I wonder if he still draws as he opens the door for me to walk through. I nod and I walk through as he has a small smile as we stand near the elevator with the odd signs which I haven’t gotten used to it yet.

I wonder if the elevators are IKEA as well or at most Jysk. 

I glance back at him.

“Hej.” And my Swedish is at such a horrible level that I laugh at slutstation every fucking time which means final stop. I just smile bleakly before I ask him in a very crooked Swedish if he speaks English, so far only two people I’ve met haven’t spoken English which for someone as dumb as me is a horrid privilege. 

“Oh, yeah. I figured. I mean, your accent also gives it away.” I freeze up. My accent and my girly voice, even if the hormones have started changing my body, my voice is far from anything. I paled up a bit and he just gives a soft smile, taking another sip from the kefir. 

“I mean, you’re from Liverpool or somewhere, aren’t you?” His accent now I realize shows that he has been living in Sweden but not for too long, but still has a soft tint of the local speech. 

“Oh, yeah.” We walk out on the same floor and I understand that I have to finish my groceries later. I can’t talk. I even forget how to deepen my voice, but his face seems soft and slowly the deja vu is slowly wearing off as I feel reality dawn on me. 

He’s real again.


	2. Chapter 2

Sometimes I wish I could get lost in IKEA, but I don’t everything is far too straight forward to even get lost and I end up getting the lightbulbs, the missing plates and just a set of cutlery which looked nice before I leave. 

I think the thing which had been crossing my mind was the fact that during puberty I could’ve started all of this to be avoided, no periods, no developing breasts which I actually wondered why had they decided to come to me and also before all the previous girls. It had been horrible, feeling myself dissolve and everyone keep nagging how much of a girl should I be, how should my hair be, the disasters from walking in heels and the arguments about my fertility always going to waste, how I will never have children,

how I am not a woman,

not a child, 

just a disgrace.

Would we really kill a life to save another which doesn’t even exist and may be even worse than the one we know? 

I don’t see him even if it gets warmer, I’m sure he’s still in his One For The Road jacket and I wonder what he would wear right now and I even try ICA for a change, Coop and I don’t seem to run into him even if we are in the same building.

What makes it worse, the realization that my puberty could be avoided either shows itself on the canvas or on the opposite seems to strangle me. I keep doing all which is needed and I know that I am not yet close to surgery, still binding my chest and recalling how I would just bind it with whatever I could find and sport bras as well.

It rarely crosses my mind, but I know that I am still not a real man in the eyes of society, so that keeps me from ringing the door and regardless of how tempting the idea of just storming in and seeing him shirtless keeps me away, because frankly my last boyfriend had said that he’d stay with me if I would keep the vagina to which I had told him that I was going to transition regardless, signing up for everything just to close my pleading mouth.

People don’t understand how much disphoria tears you up inside, how much it howls, how much the body disgusts you and you wonder what the fuck else can you do with it. And somehow they still call you what your given genitals were, regardless, there’s this whole cult around hurting people and defending the ones who just rip the soil under your feet apart and I don’t understand why.

That’s why the queer community may be too hateful, but you’ll never bash anyone because you should never blame a victim for their actions of self-defense, there is a reason why there is an explanation deeper than hate. 

I had started wondering if he is the mirage I see in my desert of loneliness with no desire to go anywhere, my hands constantly drawing and endless cups of yea seaming to be surrounding me in a circle, ready to attack. I keep drawing more and more, more ink even up to my shoulders as I keep drawing with his face strictly in my mind, never aging.  
I had seen him next time in the model store, checking out the ships, still in the same jacket and it just made me wonder even more.  
He raised his dark eyes, curious with my presence.  
He started in swedish again before smirking and apologizing in English, his mindset still turned to Swedish apparently. He nods that he’s heading out and I just follow him dumbly, still terrified as he takes out some pick and mix from his sling bag which I hadn’t even noticed he stretches it out to me and I’m scared to get licorice out of it, so I shake the bag a bit as he just watches me with soft eyes, curious. He lights a cigarette, not offering this time and breathing out the smoke.

“There isn’t any lakrits, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He inhales. I make a confused face. “Licorice.”

He smiles. 

I get some sour looking thing and hand it back. The man gets a jelly bean, coconut, I think. I keep looking at him and even if the pause is small, he manages to get three candies already and stretch me out the bag again as we keep walking and I see that we’re heading not towards the underground for a change. I still keep looking at him, finding nothing, no differences from the man from my childhood, even the neatly trimmed back of the head, the messed up quiff. 

“I’m Alex.” He hesitates to stretch his hand and does eventually. I shake it lightly, regretting that maybe I should’ve shown a firm hand. He also adds. “By the way.”

My ears start ringing, sometimes I get scared and I still give out my birth name, but something just manages to throw a blindfold upon me to believe that all is okay.

“‘M Miles.” I say, chewing on a gummy Hello Kitty, it’s not too bad and I decide that I should get it more often. But the fear still clings onto me like a wet shirt, which I can’t take off and seems to be friendly swimming with me, just giving me the discomfort of people thinking that I’m plainly odd (and hiding my chest). I quickly said my name before processing his. Alex. Alexander. It doesn’t ring a bell, just his appearance and jacket. I look at him, he doesn’t seem to have any paper rolls even if I feel as if he had some, but he didn’t and I imagine him holding them and painting.

“What do you work as?” I fire to cling onto the fabric of a dream. 

“I’m a nurse.” More jelly beans follow to be eaten. I pout a bit, but I quickly fix myself, saying that most likely he still draws in his free time, the image of him drawing new and fresh in my mind and far too vivid for a deja vu even. But he doesn’t hold anything and I’m sure he just watches any of the hospital soap operas, maybe silent instead of nagging and yet laughing when someone actually exclaims what’s wrong with it. His soft brown eyes lock on mine as we keep walking, he turns right from Åhlens and I wonder where he’s dragging me and why aren’t we heading to the tube, but I just let myself be led, no deja vu feelings as we start walking past the enormous H&M ads. 

“Oh, I’m an artist.” Alex smiles. “I’m not big or anything, I just take orders, do them and proceed, small jobs... here and there, too.”

He doesn’t ask me why am I in Sweden then and I wonder if it crosses his mind that it might be due to transition and I just keep watching him and he’s a bit shorter, but then I’ve always been quite tall and skinny, even if I do have breasts, they’re not as big as they could’ve been which makes it easier to the eye but surely not to the mind.

The fact that I draw doesn’t stir a lot of emotions, just curiosity as he keeps offering the pick and mix and only then I notice that his hands shake lightly and the fact that he might be just as anxious, a subtle deja vu maybe crossing him, seems to soothe me, it’s like a seesaw, now he’s the one up to get vertigo.


	3. Chapter 3

I can’t help but look at his chilly state and how much of a contrast our attires our, our appearance in general is quite contradicting, even if our height is close to each other, we still seem like a broken reflection, two sides of a card. We keep walking and he doesn’t go deep into Gamla Stan, walking faster, now the pick and mix gone, either smiling at me softly, observing or asking me about what jobs do I do and I just feel myself start blacking out, wondering what does he even want of me, as I observe the paradox of entity. I feel odd as if all my life, all my dreams were leading up to the moment and even with shuffling a bunch of cards and being fortune told by different people he would show up, sometimes the fortunes told would be wonky, never done by people who knew what they were doing, but he would show up. I can’t help but keep staring at him up to the point that it’s even impolite.

Is he too airy for me?

Is he the one?

Are we supposed to shag and I just feel insecure and dysphoric about my body, but he doesn’t seem to be showing much interest, just some polite curiosity. 

“So... what bands are you into?” He asks for the third time after I ask him to repeat his question, as he actually zips his jacket for once, when it’s actually not that chilly and I look at his black boots. I wish I could pull mine off as well as he does. I scratch my head. We should have similar music taste. 

“The Jam?”

“Oh, I like the Strokes and 50 Cent.” I don’t think I want my dreams to come true. I just look away, I know I’m kidding. It’s aligned and I think I pretty much want it and it seems to be the blood within me, which I pump in and out of my heart. 

I think I’ve started the affair in my head already by the time he kept coming back in the dreams, already acknowledging my age and by seeing him still airheaded from myself gives me confusion. But doubt still seems to linger as I realize that we both know close to nothing of each other and he surely knows nothing of what I believe seems to be wrapped as faith in fate. I still can’t seem to keep staring at him, my cheeks warming up and too many doubts in my head, that I’ve still got a long way to go for surgery and I’m not entirely flat with my binder, that my hands are still small, my face shape isn’t the best and pretty much I’m only thankful for my voice already being deep as given and some facial hair which I pompously shave in the morning. It was odd to do for the first time, pressing the razor against the skin, a daily task which seemed to be not mine was now in my hands and shaving off something I want to grow. It’s an odd metaphor, killing off something you want.

And it’s surely not Alex I want to kill off.

I’m sure he wants more pick and mix as he slows near the 7/11. 

And he walks in, as I see that he has a bunch of quirks which I seem to have been tied in at the present as well, meaning I get to see him choose all the sour pieces all over again as he just walks in circles around the small section.

Do I want to be with a person who just bought a kilo of pick and mix?

But what is fate? Is it walking up to a person and saying that I’ve dreamt of him and his jacket? And where do I fit in? I’m sure he has friends and he is friends with doctors and I’m sure he’s taken anyway. I don’t even know if he’s gay or interested in men, actually, I don’t know if he’s transphobic, but then he never said anything and he doesn’t seem to mind me as we head out and I quickly buy a coke, annoyed at the price which is pretty much the same to a litre bottle of coke in ICA. He offers me it again, as we slowly make our way out of the old streets, past an English bookstore with a poster of Kerouac hugging someone else, but I don’t pay much attention, instead staring at the BUY THE GUARDIAN HERE sign, but I just walk past with Alex, who seems to look up and see the lights which still seemed to be hinting out Christmas, but they’re still pretty so they don’t seem to bother him. 

I can’t help but frown at the side and I don’t understand why would people hang onto something which forced them out, but instead I see a guy walk out, said Guardian under his arm, and smile briefly, looking at my companion. He’s much shorter than us and his skin is also a few shades darker, evidence of some long tan and he walks up to him, a dark blue coat which seems to stick out even here. 

“Hey, Al.” And he stretches a packet of cigarettes as the nurse takes one and the man’s attention is shifted towards me, as Alex greets him. He keeps looking at me, a bit too intimately and he glances at my chest, which is fucking well binded and my coat is over it, so I do give out a flat impression and I just stick my head closer to my scarf as he just shrugs and inhales, glancing back at Al.

“I’m Miles.” I say, causing both of them to glance at me and I just want to slap my gender before anything else is presumed and Alex just smiles, lightly, the other man lighting his cigarette as his dark eyes are still looking at me, not a glare, but something far too untrustworthy seems to be glued to my forehead which causes him concern. 

“Jamie.” The man says and looks down at his cigarette. I could nag about his gender neutral name, but I don’t, a bit too used of throwing back “compliments” at people who seem to think that something is wrong with me, so I point them out that maybe something about them is just as queer as I am. I feel a bit insecure as I look at him cleanly shaved and hair clearly styled and the coat, which seems a bit too much of a female fit, but he seems to be comfortable in his own shoes, while he catches me on the fact, that I don’t. 

We both take a side from Alex, as he seems to be the middle ground, as we start walking already out, the bridges in sight and soon enough the train station. We all keep our silence. 

“Miles, this is...”

“I’m Alex’s ex.” He interrupts bitterly, his heavy gaze now on Alex, who just starts searching his jacket pockets for the train ticket, as we all swiftly follow and I feel the blood in my ears pulsing.

He’s into men. 

Alex is into men.

But would he count me as one?

I feel myself grow cold and even shiver lightly as I wrap the gray scarf tighter around me, wishing I still thought it was cold enough to bring gloves. 

And Jamie is into men, as well.

It feels unsettling to see him with the Guardian, which is later passed onto me, like a muffler as he whispers something into Alex’s ear, his eyes still holding a cold stare, as if he’s with a hammer trying to shatter my wall to reveal me naked, but he sees me already and in the train I end up flicking it over, trying to block my mind with one poison to the other, as I flick through pages, which speak of different things and I keep flicking, my throat clogging up and I see people like me, graze the pages, an outbreak of transphobia and it feels like some sad irony to remind myself of how much I’m not wanted back home and I try to clog up memories of traveling to different small art stores and before leaving, how weird it felt not having a student ID anymore.

Jamie keeps looking at me, unbuttoning his coat, glancing at Alex who keeps looking at the darkness behind the windows. 

I look up to drop up at our Slutstation, which literally means last station and once we jump off, a man takes off his hat, mocking and I just see Jamie rolls his eyes as Alex smirks, as if all three have held hands once to realize that neither of them were lovers to the other and once I glance at the new man’s dark eyes something dark seems to yank me, like the hidden crack in the deja vu and I hear the noise of a train and I turn around to hear nothing.

Alex is into men.

The new man now exchanges cigarettes with the other three and I wonder if there is some hidden catch, behind the three, but no deja vu feeling came with Jamie who once I glance harshly exhales his smoke, throwing his arm around the new man, kissing his cheek as Alex awkwardly shuffles his feet and they all turn, as if torn to the escalator.


	4. Chapter 4

Sometimes I feel like I’m the only crazy one, without friends, drawing until dawn, music in my ears, no longer wanting friends but a partner, the dreams shutting me off, as he keeps coming back and coincidence even stops being what it is.

It’s weird to see how two people shatter, even if they had admitted to date each other or rather Jamie throwing out like an already discarded cigarette. I wonder what the hell had gone through them, as they seem to be fighting on knives, but somehow their mood not controlling their bizarre actions and I wonder how many times have they laid next to each other, both of them smoking a cigarette instead of sharing, not even a stance anymore, but the relationship so distant from love yet at an intimate stop where the question is just thrown in the air, like a ball

just to fall like a moon

why aren’t we dating. 

I glance at Jack.

He just smiles at me, I blink as I picked his name up from Jamie’s talk, as he had asked him if he had stalked up and Jamie seemed to ponder who to stay with, who to award with his presence. Alex muttered that he should’ve done shopping, causing Jamie to glance hopefully and Alex just shrugged, saying that he’s ok, that Jamie and Jack can be together for tonight. The ex boyfriend didn’t glance at me, as we all kept walking as they asked about me, thankfully no questions asked, when all my life I had to be friends with females, feeling uncomfortable with men who presumed me to be a straight cis female. Thing is until you realize your gender identity, your sexuality is a reason as well, because you don’t feel the attraction your assigned gender should feel, you don’t feel like your assigned gender, it’s the pondering at a mirror, making faces, leaning against the sink, wondering how would the body look without breasts, combing the hair back, touching foam, spreading it on the face and wishing there was something to shave.

I still feel Jamie’s stare on me, I feel intimidated as I feel him check out my chest, my coat thankfully covering quite below my hips and I feel intimidated, I just keep glancing back at him, never even having the urge to glance back. 

Eventually, we all reach our destination, as I can’t help but glance one last time at Jamie, as he says bye to Al, moving his arms around before he pulls him in and I see Alex put his head briefly against Jamie’s shoulder. 

It’s not even jealousy,

what do I even have with him?

I just happen to be speaking English as much as they do and I just had a few dreams of the man with the jacket and he doesn’t even paint. Once I get back home, Jamie lingers in my head and I wonder why. He makes me feel far too intimidated. I struggle before pulling my binder off, even if I had decided to shower earlier. 

I head up to the mirror, glancing at myself sideways. 

Nowhere close to my eye, even if it was someone else, I would tell them not to worry, but by the end of the day, it’s not even the society which pressures you, it’s the fact that the body feels foreign, society still clashing in the head, as hormones are nearly always prescribed to trans people, some natural heading in some direction,

but what would it change?

I take off the binder, pulling off the sports bra-

I stare at myself. I clench my jaw and put it back on-

I hear a knock on the door. 

I put back everything on and grab a hoodie, zipping it, jumping through yesterday’s bought art supplies as I open the door to see Jamie, now his hair combed and I just stare at him. He quickly glances at Alex’s door. 

“May I smoke?” He asks and in the middle of my nod, he just steps in, cigarette already lit and he inhales, politely still stepping on the rug, biting his bottom lip-

He’s surely fucked Alex. 

I feel a ping in my hip, as I hug myself around the chest and Jamie just notices it. He smirks and lets himself think for a while. I myself slowly start sweating and shivering at the same time, the other man just blinks and offers me a cigarette. 

I wonder about his raising and his stance on transmen. 

“How do you know Alex?” He asks a bit too bitterly, digging his nails into the end of the cigarette. I notice his longer nails, yet they seem to be very well kept. 

I blink.

“I met him.” 

“Go on.” 

“ICA?” I swallow. He doesn’t believe me. 

“How long have you been living here?”

“About a month. Two.” His eyes glitter and I can see that he wants to ask why did I move, but he just glances at my chest again and I just tighten my hands around it, shivering, realizing that wherever I go regardless of how tight my binder will be, things will slip through people’s minds. Jamie takes one last inhale. 

“You know Sodermalm?” I nod. “I’ll meet you near the train station tomorrow at ten p.m. Let’s get some beer.” 

And he buttons his tight fitted coat, which frankly looks good on him. Jamie gives me a small wave and I watch him head up to the spiral stairs as I watch him and then he stops and glances at me, both of us, not blinking and he looks down with a small smile and heads off.

I close my door.

I open the door. 

I consider my own decision and eventually I bang my hand against the door a few times, before slipping back into my shoes and I start walking faster, trying to catch up with him as the cold chilly air seems to be nothing like a scarf

and then I feel a warm presence as I turn around, feeling like I see fire from the corner of my eye and instead, I see nothing

until I realize that Jamie had headed that direction. I walk a bit, choosing the swing instead. I sit there for a while, glancing around, closing my eyes, for some reason I dream of Jamie in the jacket as he feeds himself grapes. 

In the morning I dream of a man with his hair on fire, but he’s not Jamie, hair curled up to be flames. 

But morning dreams don’t mean anything, I think as I turn around. 

I try to sleep and sleep avoid me, as I wonder how Jamie got the jacket or maybe my own dreams are telling me that he knows that I’ve known Alex before, even if it doesn’t seem clear how would he know. But he showed up in the same jacket, as well, as if there is some metaphor behind it and I wonder of it, how long has Alex had it, maybe his father who looks identically like him has it and it was his father, who is a painter, because there are some differences, like why do I dream of Alex as if he were a painter? 

I don’t know how you fall in love, because I’ve been having him in my head for years, already threading future together, because it seemed that he’d be the only one since he came to me in dreams and I don’t know,

you just fall in love with the fate you carry in your suitacase, it’s absurd and it’s there, wondering as much as you are. 

The longing wraps me every day like a cocoon.

But Jamie still shows up in my dream and I see him lying on the train, arms crossed and feet against the window up and he glances at me, eyes big and green curious with all the emotions and cold running through my body as if he were touching me and once he looks away I still feel his touch and my lips cold from the lack of emotion I should be feeling against them. 

And by the morning when I head out for a stroll to keep my head and I wonder how much wild life actually crawls out of the bushes I stumble onto teenagers still in platform shoes, how their hair changes to brighter colours as I head onwards, my jacket unzipped and I thank myself for wearing the binder, nearly abusing the recommendations sometimes as I keep walking, noticing how their bags get lighter and how they are most likely speaking of holidays and that’s when I press my head against the metal pole at the bus stop, closing my eyes, a light shiver running through my body as I still think of Jamie and his piercing eyes, how he has some distrust in me which seems to ride him. 

And I recall the loneliness which washed over me after every morning wank, when I believed that it would set my head straight and it dawned on me how much I had started loving Alex, how I would wish to meet him, feel his jacket under my fingers and just lay in bed with him, waking early and drinking just to sleep again. 

I think it’s powerful to find the energy within me every day to do things, to even look at people whose fate is entirely different from mine, from people who didn’t have to leave everything and who cringe at their own birth name and wonder how would everything wander off and how is it to wake up with oh so many less concerns. 

Being trans in society feels like being on a train and banging your hand against the window to get off it, to get of into nowhere but you can’t be on the train to make you straight and cis and also think of the cuts and broken fingers as you keep pounding, face straight as you keep pounding, the pain devouring and nourishing the freedom which might not come at all, but your deviance remains.

I think it’s a question of self-worth because when you’ve been alone for a while, you start doubting yourself, what if my presence would push Alex away, what if there is just the string of fate holding upon us but upon discovering my face value, it would all be gone? There is also a difference between loneliness and solitude, you can be lonely with people while in solitude, you’re lonely by yourself. 

It had always been an issue of distancing myself, only opening up to art, because there if I wore a binder in front the canvas, it wouldn’t care and I could scribble Miles all over it,

while life, life was different. I close my eyes tighter at the memory as I just exit the underground, eager for something.

I have far too much time to kill on my hand and when that happens that’s when the streets may turn into a blur, making me too anxious and I start doubting myself, I end up getting a milkshake just to feel the liquid go inside me as I walk around Södermalm, a bit confused where would even Jamie take me and I just wonder how much more will the longing continue destroying me, how daft I am for just believing in a dream, a reoccurring dream where we talk and the only thing which doesn’t match is the fact that apparently Alex has never held a brush in his hands and I can’t help but peek in every store, knowing that all belongs to the same clothing group, frowning at some prices and just pondering over others, always hesitating before going to the male section. 

Sometimes I am thankful for changing behind a door, as the binder is revealed with myself. 

And as I walk on, past the gay bar which looks like it crawled out of Amsterdam’s weed cafes I keep walking, hugging myself around the chest as I see some women check me out, most likely those who read that bra week on the lesbian section of autostraddle is something I would do and I just feel uncomfortable as I still see their smirks, most likely thinking that I’m closeted and I just reach the next turn and I pause, closing my eyes, my knees chattering

Feminists.

“This is some obscure feminist shit.” Was spread and told to my face, as I would be sat down, knuckles slammed down, as I see Jack approach me and I keep seeing flashbacks-

I am somehow in his arms, as he asks me-

“Where did you meet Alex?” Jack is warm and I’m somehow crying, my vision black, all memories down to me-  
the same said binder pinned to the table with shaking hands and accusing me of being a lesbian, since I wore a binder. I would just sit there as they would yell at me, that my hair wasn’t feminine and why the hell have I not even tried to learn to cook for my husband, that I should be something to be proud of, not something to be frowned upon and what were all these sex toys lying around and how come I had no man.

“Hey, you ok, ” I think that’s Jamie’s voice and I feel myself in the arm of the taller man, as my hands seem to fall from myself-

My own body catches on my confused consciousness, the shakiness, the accusation of being a lesbian whilst not being attracted to any women at all. I’ve taken the Kinsey scale test being solely homosexual. 

When I open my eyes I can see both Jack and Jamie staring at me and for a second Jack’s hair seems lighter, but I just blink that as he smiles at Jamie. I get a cup of coffee shoved in my hands as I am slowly lifted up to see myself on a couch in some coffee shop, which I instantly think is overpriced as my vision shifts lightly and Jamie just yanks the cup against my teeth and I am solely forced to swallow, the drifting of memories still in mind. Jack swallows and quickly glances at Jamie, who just shrugs and I just keep observing them both. 

“Miles...” He pauses. Jack scratches his face. He just shakes his head. My head winces with all it’s might and I moan lightly as I keep watching the two men and I wonder of their age and how much is even all of our age differences. I wonder how much is even Alex, as I keep observing them and Jack just drinks some coffee out of his own mug, Jamie’s drank and he just continues playing with his cigarette box-

I recall more dreaming of escaping as I feel like puking, but instead they keep shifting the cigarette box. Jack looks at Jamie pleadingly and Jamie just ignores it. 

I shift and I feel it, biting my lip and no questions are asked and I wonder how much do they know and Jamie insists on following me to the disabled bathroom, where there is much more space and I just pale up. I nearly lose my balance as he just catches me and he’s far too close and I see his short, spread eyelashes before he glances at me, cold at first and then eases with a sigh.

“Miles, don’t worry. Jack was going to ask...” He pauses. “Y’know if you’re in that part of the month, but held. Look, don’t worry, ok?” 

I feel like fainting as I feel him stroking my back now, as my head is against his shoulder. I feel Jamie tense up lightly. 

“Look, I’m sorry. I... had the thought, but Jack told me, look, don’t worry, ok?” And he holds me until I can stand and then he turns around and gives me some privacy and I roll my eyes at the whole situation and when I sit down, my underwear revealing the nice patch of blood and I just swear, causing Jamie to nearly look back and I just wince, feeling dysphoric and feeling the gap between my legs. I don’t have anything on me.

I didn’t have it last month. 

“Do... do you want Jack to get anything, Miles?” He asks and traces his fingers on the door handle and I just grunt, feeling a really bad cramp. My whole head is spinning. I grunt louder and that’s when Jamie turns and we both redden up and he just closes his eyes. “Shit, sorry, just checking on you, man. Shit, sorry.”

Man.

I smile weakly.

“Thanks.” Jamie nods. I take out my notebook out of my pocket and scribble with the pen, artist’s quirks, what I need and I hand it to Jamie. I wait for a while, now with Jamie as Jack knocks on the door again and I am freed at least from blood patches. Now, they buy me cake, which I don’t even refuse and Jamie just softly nags that he wishes he could smoke, if we sat outside, but instead we just sit inside. Jack slowly babbles on what he likes about Stockholm, how it’s filled with everyone and how you don’t feel foreign and how the weather doesn’t kill you. I watch him, as I feel Jamie’s concerned face. Then abruptly Jack stands up.

“Ok, I’ll leave you both on your date, yeah?” He swiftly grabs his coat from the coach besides me, as I still feel everything shift and me and Jamie look at each other. We blink. 

“Don’t go cheating on me, Jaime.” 

I just am about to ask, but instead Jamie flips at Jack.


	5. Chapter 5

“I’m Brazilian.” I just blink in confusion at the sudden information given to me as I just take a small sip. Jamie goes on. “As in, my...” 

He does inverted comas with his fingers. 

“Name technically is Jaime. But it’s fucked up so I just go by the English version.” I keep my awkward silence, as he keeps looking at me interested. I open my mouth. “You don’t have to, it’s your choice neither I think it’s polite to ask about genitals or whatever. I mean, I don’t get asked about my dick size, why should you get that asked... Name as well.” 

I just nod. Jamie taps his fingers against his coffee mug, before drumming against the cigarette box. 

“You feelin’ alright?”

“Yeah.” I order a second coffee and Jamie follows my example. I glance at him as he gets a cigarette and excuses himself, after I tell him to go ahead. The two coffees arrive, my own head fuzzy and at first I don’t look at him through the window, his coat widely opened as he first just smokes, watching the people and even lighting someone else’s cigarette and after that he glances at me, before smirking at our eye contact and he just mockingly heads up to the window and blows smoke at me. I just flip at him, smirking and he just stands there finishing the cigarette and it’s awkward to know that we have nowhere to lean, so he just discards the cigarette and heads back in, getting his coat off and we resume the awkwardness only with no window, Alex deep in my thoughts. Where does Alex fit in then, if I’ve got Jamie on my back? What do I even do if he were to kiss me and it feels weird knowing that I haven’t kissed anyone in a few years, my own lips only touching the cold air and wanting someone else’s. 

What about Alex? And I get anxious that I can’t get myself to knock on Alex’s door and I don’t think I will be, yet here I am with a Brazilian, drinking coffee as he presses his palm against my forehead and I’m still cold and he just ignores his own thinking by drinking more coffee. 

“Why did you move to Sweden?” I ask him.

“I... I was thinking to study, but never did.” He shrugs. “I just... gave up on education. When your university is on a strike and your parents want something out of you, which you can’t give, sometimes it just doesn’t happen. And I get a monthly allowance and will until I die, I just made it smaller to make it last. I don’t want to learn something I won’t need. I just want to live, I guess. I mean I live with Jack, like, not dating, or Alex. I watch them, I get inspired and that’s all I need. I think... when education is forced on you, not given and then you’re left not wanting it at all.”

Jamie smiles and for some reason drums against the mug, spacing out a bit before he focuses his green eyes on mine. 

“And I’m 27. I don’t feel like starting it, anyway.” He smirks and his silence just gives me a while to realize how much younger he looks for his age, as I thought we were the same age. We look at each other for a while, both a bit flushed from sudden attraction. Jamie motions towards me.

“...I just don’t want to go somewhere where I can be bullied for...” I pause. He knows, anyway. “For being trans. And I make a living, anyway, so...”

“Fair enough.” He sighs, a bit relived. “We don’t all end up in education. Ends up being far more harmful.”

Jamie tries to collect the right words.

“Education is very superficial, sometimes... well, I just feel like I missed on a club to...” He widens his eyes. “To be superficial for ever, y’know? But the thing is if something is exclusive, like me being gay wouldn’t fly there, why should I be there? But then I just got traumatized by one country, so maybe I’m too judging.”

“No...I don’t think so.” We both end our coffees as the same time, synchronized as I watch the older man. “All the realizations come anyway sooner or later. Not necessarily after a wank-”

Jamie smirks. 

“Or in a shower, sometimes it’s life, but yeah, usually it’s wanking.” I smirk, flushing at my own change of topic. I scratch my head, still feeling my stomach being swallowed by the bullet wound, as I recall reading by seeing it as a wound, period, I mean. We quickly order more and Jamie watches me, amused, his eyes far too soft- “I mean, I was wanking, just wondering and I kept picturing myself as a bloke and in that split second, before you start cleaning up after yourself-”  
I watch him far too much.

“As daft as it is, you realize you’re a bloke and there’s nothing you can do about it. Then you start realizing how all the small changes build a bigger picture, like as if you’re going through some second puberty, only a smaller one, trying to get you back on track on what you’ve missed, like some consolation prize.” I grin, Jamie’s far too close and the cups are quietly placed, not interrupting our date but as soon as I turn, we both jerk closer and just move back, my face red, Jamie’s own thoughts far too scattered and bright, as we stare awkwardly at the liquid, knowing that it’s far too early to drink, also from each other. 

Jamie invites me to smoke with him, as the coffee cools down, as I stand watching him light the seventh cigarette today, as we both know  
for whom, looking, we’ve traded our anxiety in. I feel like I’ve grown two anxieties all of a sudden, Alex would leave me breathless in the night as I would wonder and sigh, looking down at my tired chest, if he would ever-

Jamie and Jack know. Would they tell Alex?

“I think it’s a bit disappointing when you see that someone moved on from you, even if you moved on from them.” Jamie mutters, stirring the sugar slowly, watching how the milk still makes shapes. 

Depression enchants me, clutching me tighter and threading it’s dark fingers over me.

“It’s better than realizing that you think much more than a person whose just met you, when you’ve known them.” I say and I feel my bottom lip freeze and that’s when I feel Jamie’s eyes harden on me and I just take a gulp.

“Where do you know Al from?” Jealousy never goes away, we’ll always be jealous of those we loved. Because it’s the feeling which replaced eternity. I look at him a bit lost and I just sigh.

“I dreamt of him. Many many years. He’s the same. The jacket is the same.” My voice shakes. “His One For The Road jacket.”

“...He just bought it.” Jamie still says, as he looks at me with the same confusion and loss as he tries to grasp the whole meaning behind the words, the enigma which I happened to be and he just shrugs, taking a big gulp and looking ahead, before looking back. I did know Alex. 

I wonder how deep does Jamie’s love for Al run and if it’s the valves holding backflow or the walls themselves?

When I started freelancing it was when I realized that there is a huge world beyond 9 to 5 which you don’t get to see in school, because when you’re out you still think just everyone else is out. And seeing Jamie and Al just confirm it’s existence scares me lightly. 

“I’ve always dreamt of him, the way he looks now... He’s always there. I always thought he’d recognize me, because my dreams are so vivid and nothing seemed to add up in life and nothing still does after meeting him.” My heart is in my throat, besides the fact that I try not to think of him not to depress myself when I do tea in the morning, when I put on the binder, knowing that he’s just not interested just because the look in his eyes said so and Jamie’s confusion just confirms everything.

I have nothing to fiddle with in front of me physically or emotionally as well anymore. My thoughts seem to scatter, fear increasing and growing as Jamie just looks at me more confused before looking away and pulling his phone out. I watch him scroll to the top of the contact list-

“No!” I say and I nearly yank the phone out and he looks at me confused, my face flushed, I’m even losing points with him when I’ve lost Alex. He looks at me bewildered, I quickly glance at his lips, my feelings torn and hope deader than dead. I grab the sofa fabric under me, shaking my head. 

“Please don’t-” I stop breathing. 

“Al doesn’t know.” Jamie says and I realize what a mistake I’ve done telling someone who loves Alex deeper than I do and has all rights in doing so. I look down. 

“I-” I don’t know what to say, I feel my ears ringing and my period is making me weaker, cramps slowly making their way up my stomach and I feel as if I could vomit blood if I could, my breath shortening, I always thought I’d have a chance, because why else would you dream of a person so often? Jamie holds his silence and starts flipping his phone in his hands. He presses it against his lips, observing the bored barista scrubbing the coffee cups. “I’m sorry this is ridiculous and he’s your ex, it’s even worse that I’m telling you this.”

I press my face against my hands and I feel some shift and I expect a hand on my back but it takes a longer while and I’m sure he’s hesitating. 

“It’s...not. I mean, some coincidences happen and they hold some deeper meaning who knows why the fuck.” I hear his feet clash against the table leg and he shifts towards me. I feel his breath against my hands. I am scared to even put my hands down. He sighs and I feel him press his lips against my left hand and go back into his initial seating position. “Nothing makes sense until it unfolds. But it’s surely unfolding since you met him, so.”

I remove my hands from my face and I watch him, my face entirely flushed and he’s a bit flushed himself, but tries to calm himself down, fiddling with his short hair and I just look away. 

“Yeah, I guess.” I snap out of it. “Wait, you still don’t mind... me?”

Jamie tilts his head in confusion.

“I mean, you invited me out and-” Jamie nods, getting my daft question. 

“As long as you’re not with him and not cheating on anyone, I don’t give a fuck and I’m single so...” He sighs, shrugging with his shoulders, his voice darkening on the cheating bit. “Watch your back with Al, though. He cheated on me with one of my bestfriends a few years ago... y’know, when we broke up. I mean, if you guys ever date. He’s some fucked up shit...”

He opened his mouth to tell more, but closes it, watching my reaction. 

“Excuse me?” I blink. Al cheating? I try to absorb as much I can of Jamie to get any hints, but he remains silent. He just shrugs again, trying not to open the topic again, as I just watch him and drop it eventually until another question goes in my head. 

“Maybe he was polyamorous?” I suggest shyly, realizing the fine line between cheating and polyamory and Jamie just shakes his head and we’re taking too long in the coffee shop and Jamie motions to go outside and we just start putting on our coats and he helps me stand up, which I don’t seem to struggle much with, but brushing my fingers against his gives me much more food for thought. 

“No. He never wanted to pursue a relationship, it just happened... as he said. I’d rather not now, if you don’t mind. I mean, we’re not yet-” He glances at me and sighs, a small smile with the prospect and I just look away as we make our way out. I try to figure out properly where are we, but I just trust Jamie whose lived here for far more than I have. “Are you polyamorous?”

I shake my head.

“I don’t think so...” I pause. I should spill my secrets. “I never dated too many people. I tried girls.”

I scratch my head shyly.

“That didn’t work, realized it wasn’t my sexuality but rather my gender, well yeah and my sexuality.” I sigh, this is embarassing and I just can’t help but feel a bit wooed by Jamie, who watches me curiously. I pause and resume walking just slower, which makes Jamie even more curious. “I never slept with anyone, I had too much troubles figuring out what the fuck was going on with me.”

Jamie blinks.

“Oh.” I nod. “That it?”

I narrow my eyes, what the fuck.

“I thought you’d tell me you have some weird fetish.” 

“No?”

“Cool, coz I like choking. C’mon, walk faster, it’ll get cold that way.” He takes me under his arm and I just stare at him amused and I can’t get the image out of him having a chocking fetish. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? Jamie just strolls with me, smiling at my reaction before laughing and the fact that he doesn’t deny it doesn’t seem to ease me as he holds my silence to continue laughing and leans in a bit closer before we both just look away

this is getting ridiculous

“This is getting ridiculous.” I say outloud and Jamie just lights another cigarette. 

“I know. Keep it that way, Miles. Amuse both of us.” He holds his gaze, lighting the cigarette and just turns around to make sure the smoke doesn’t go in my face and I look down, letting my smile take me as I see Jamie watch me from the corner of my eye.


	6. Chapter 6

What if I were polyamorous as I wonder as me and Jamie walk hand in hand all the way back to Gamla Stan, passing through the stores and poster in Södermalm which was saying wish you were queer and Jamie smirked at it.

"What?"

"You are queer, no more wishing."

"Fuck off." I smirk at him and we just keep strolling and he starts talking more about Brazil and I just keep listening wondering if I will ever be dragged there and how would it be. I close my eyes for a while, I wouldn’t be able to go in the water until I get top surgery. I always enjoyed swimming but then it started getting out of hand when people would point at my chest and I just gave up, realizing that baths were the best I would get with bubbles which would circulate around me.

I don’t know if either of us have anything else to do, but we depart anyway, as me and Jamie shuffle awkwardly, as he excuses that he promised to help Jack with something, which revealed that he lived with Jack and didn’t pay rent, just bought the groceries and Jack’s salary didn’t seem to be harmed by this regardless.

"Sorry I gotta go." And we both ghost over each other’s lips.

I’ve never even kissed another bloke fully out and it’s not even

It’s Jamie really, it’s that daft feeling when you meet someone and you don’t know them and you know there’s something which keeps both of your eyes lingering on each other.

"No worries. So call me, yeah?" I smile and Jamie nods, hands in pockets.

"Yeah." With no 9 to 5 job and no fixed schedule when do you do decide to meet? How do you keep your life intact still makes me wonder but it’s really the tasks you give yourself and the time keeping.

"I’ll see you, Miles." And he kisses my cheek, holding it and I lean in and it happens, I pull him closer, feeling him press against me as we each open our mouths and I hear a low moan before we break the kiss.

"Yeah, tomorrow." Shit. I pick up my mistake. "I mean, whenever."

"Nah, tomorrow’s cool." I breathe out as he says it, my fingertips and elbows pulsing. He slowly starts heading towards the escalator to the underground. Jamie turns around.

"C-" he drops the question as he blinks, shyly and just waves off, heading down and I watch him as he gets the card out and glances back at me, giving me a small wave.

Fuck.

He’s gorgeous once you get to know him.

The taste of his lips still electrifies me as I head off to Åhlens for no reason, walking past the makeup and I head up the escalators, Jamie’s tongue still leaving traces and his body heat still upon my hands.

I’m sure he’s gone by now.

Fuck.

I should meet the deadline. I cover my face with my hand, holding a laugh and a cry. He’s fucking gorgeous but this doesn’t explain Alex with his dreams.

I get a text postponing until later and I just approve Alex’s request, wondering if Jamie will still be lingering when I meet someone fated

But you never really know who is.

I think there’s this big wave of depression when you see people in university or school and I can’t help but wonder if I missed anything, in the beginning was it OK or is it better now with no schedule just deadlines and trying to get as much jobs and raise the rate and I can’t help but compare if I ever did something wrong, because people paint it glamourously when you say fuck to everything when all you do is wake up at twelve and neurotically plan your day because no one else does it for you, because we are programmed that time should be kept at bay, whether we want it or not.

I get some pick and mix downstairs overpriced for no reason, not eating it until Jamie’s taste fades entirely from my mouth and it makes me wonder if he’s holding his or if it’s already mixed with cigarettes and what would be on his mind. Are our lives that idle? Not choosing to go further to avoid hassle and isolate seemed to bring the worse in all my relatives. And it’s always against everything, binder off just to avoid questions and being vulnerable makes no difference binder on or off.

Who would love a transman? Or whatever the fuck you are? I wish the faces were blurred so that I wouldn’t notice what they were saying or how their lips spread, but I do. I see them, I see them yelling, I see them yelling and judging me how I shifted apartment through apartment until I ended up with Alex as my neighbor.

I can’t help but wonder because those who judged me before who made me leave still judge me in my mind, you don’t recover quickly.

And walking by the System Bolaget which already has people rushing in it dawns on me, with his lips crashing on me-

Fuck

Fuck

Fuck

I start trembling and the pick and mix nearly spills in my hands as I imagine Jamie’s hands wandering all over my body, do I even take off my binder? What would he see? What would his reaction be? He surely knows I own one, but the question still remains, I still have one and I -

Well, I’m bleeding for now and would he even want to?

Can I even get pregnant?

I should use condoms anyway and I head in to see all the people scattered in all sections in the pharmacy to remind ourselves that everyone is ill, everyone spends 200 kroner on something every week, let it be allergies or sleeping pills, everyone spends on something and I see the monopoly on condoms. I see how everything is the same, how the boxes are barely different, all offering the huge amount and choice.

Would I even need flavored?

When I was growing up I heard one of the girls I was friends with, when I would wear a sport bra, hair already chopped off and earrings removed for a brief while as she would say that you can only buy condoms if you are ready for sex.

Fuck.

I get the big mixed pack, guessing that the government monopolizes condoms and booze. Sex and alcohol. Drugs illegal and rock and roll is pretty much free. I pay with a shaking hand, opening the wallet, quickly dividing the sum by ten to calm myself down and I nod as I get asked the phrase which I learnt means if I want the check and I head out.

What if he doesn’t even want to have sex with me?

What about lube?

I anxiously start going back before I realize that I’ve had enough for one day-

What about a strap-on?

Fuck.

Fuck.

I always wondered if I wanted a packer and I only figured that I should end up wasting a bit less on paint and perhaps buy one for the time being, but for now I had nothing just the empty space in my jeans and boxers.

Where did he even fall?

Was everyone a top and a vers?

I had a dildo. That was it. A vibrator. W-

I quickly take out my phone and I don’t even know what to Google and I just look at Jamie’s phone number. He could at least get the lube? What if I don’t want to bottom? I don’t have a penis now. All I have is a problematic vagina which was always dry which my mother would drag me to the gynecologist and I’d be told to just lube and lube up until I fucking read that I wasn’t the only transman who didn’t enjoy the front entrance.

Fuck, I’m still on my period.

I get bumped into and I just nod, looking back to see all the people and trying to get back to the tunnelbanan to escape everything to see the landscape in the pendeltåg and tell myself that everything is ok.

But how is it ok when we all move to places because there is nothing else we can do? How is it ok that we can’t be who we want, that we are lied about the “non-existent” nine to five life and with people begging on the streets, the younger and more nationalities it just reminds me of an inner war with its own population and how everyone should be happy for every scrap or inch they get and even if the sky might not be seen, everything is enough to be thankful as I keep hearing more and more languages and I just close my eyes, to forget everything and knowing that we are all reduced to paperwork. We are all paperwork, because there’s so many and the human factor becomes the machine, the lost ticket becomes the error.

I dress up, tighten up for Alex

and it’s like when you’re young

I have a crush on said actor, but I love said classmate.

Would I love Alex?

Would I fuck Jamie?

In reality we hate our lives so much that we try to avoid them as much as possible, we create art as we watch movies of lives we will never take because our are concentrates of our own misery, a squash and there is no tap to dilute it and it becomes so unbearable that we lose our minds regardless of where we are and none of us are diagnosed with some hateful depression.  
What if all the love is in my head and he became my Xanax to make myself believe that I can sleep, when I can do so on my own but he’s a way to make my bones not rot.  
He exists in my head, but he never loves my skin.

And I say this holding the pack of mixed condoms in hand for Jamie.


	7. Chapter 7

Sometimes art doesn’t have to paid, and to be honest it shouldn’t. I had gone to Spain this year and I was refused a student price because I wasn’t enrolled and that ticketed the fuck out of me, because I didn’t want to go on saying that I didn’t want to enroll somewhere where my name would never be respected and not wearing a binder made my own argument even more invalid. 

And people pay for art.

I get paid for art, I get paid to photoshop a few things and I roll around in my chair, listening how I’m wasting my life as if I were the drying oil on the canvas behind me, the one which you want won’t sell because it shouldn’t really sell.

“Miles, if you’re trans, why don’t you draw transmen?”

“Because I have my enough struggles. I don’t want every character I have to face the same struggles.” And Nick just shrugged, as he watched all the boxes being taken away and my parents going to leave as well and he just smiled softly, knowing that I’d be going and he’d be left as he had said that he’ll be left with those blokes who would squirm at a bra. I took my backpack.

“You ended up being one of them.” And that was the last I had said to him.

And then the departure and all the paperwork were getting worse and worse, the queues and all the people with stories worse and easier than mine to tell as the lines get longer and words are plainly said that everyone fleeds and nights are spent making money after it’s pronounced that if I am going with the system of making money and not staying in the woods, but doing it a bit differently, not choosing university because the offered job was taken and movement erratic, I am still judged. 

“I barely draw transmen because I don’t want to bother drawing dysphoria every time, drawing is my escape and I fucking wish I had a penis, you know.” I snapped at Nick once, as he had spilled his coffee and apologized. 

It’s weird how you don’t date people solely because they think that trans is a barrier. 

I press my face against the glass which emits itself to be dark. 

And when I do see Alex watch me curiously near my door, I know it’s unravelling, his eyes holding a deja vu, which doesn’t seem to break and I know I won’t escape it with Jamie’s lips all over my body and we both leave the apartment at the same time for our own date, as if there is no schedule and Alex asks me if I prefer beer to cider and offers cider, stating that when he came to Sweden he discovered cider for himself and he’s still in the jacket only with a woolen layer underneath and I can’t help but gawk on him as he smiles at me, his hair in a quiff and not as lazily styled as Jamie’s, clothes aren’t as expensive, but they seem more lightly worn and sleeves rolled up more than once. His fingers seem rougher and I wonder how many injections he does a day and how much is his shift and how many lips has he ever kissed in his life. 

We’re intertwined and it’s unravelling is what my pulse says and my beliefs and my wails and the trembling hands with the Stockholm boarding pass and the emptiness of Skavsta airport. When you’re blinded by love is it your own or Alex’s? Or Jamie’s in general and I can’t help but keep looking at him, some silent wall giving him insights of how deep had I known him and he’s without candy and slowly we progress on small talk as he smiles and I can’t help but watch his dark eyes and there’s too much to row and I feel awful that Jamie’s lips linger in my own mouth, maybe two tries of the same cake is too much at the same time?

Maybe I just want Alex to crush all reality, say no bond so that would just try and ease and see something in front of me rather than through my dreams? 

His cards are never flipped over and my own judgment is lost and biased. 

Anxiety is the tool to all of our misery. 

I would feel like I was fighting some war where I wasn’t sure what I even was and all I would see is people giving me the wrong ideas up to the point that I wasn’t even sure I was fighting, it was all revolting and sometimes I would just look around to see how alone I was. I look at Al, it was odd to feel that I was the only one who had to construct myself to some extent, take the step of going to the barbers are realizing where would my dysphoria end and where my own habits were.

It’s odd to slowly start realizing even at the back of the head that maybe there is something attractive to me, not that I see it late at night, binder off with my chest aching and paint all over the floor that I have to hastily clean up. The closest I would get once I was out was people telling me that they wouldn’t date a transman and the closest to close was only they would but after bottom surgery.

I feel like both Alex and Jamie run parallel lines. 

I have fallen in love with Alex too many times for it not to be true.

We make our way slowly back into Gamla Stan and he starts talking of the italian restaurant which is actually good and I just nod, solely keeping the deadline in my head and I try to avoid his gaze for a while, our conversations minimal from both sides and I wonder how close is he with Jamie and when I see a text from Jamie, my blood gets cold as we get seated and once you face each other that’s when you realize that you have no other way but rather than to converse. He quickly texts his ex back, apologizing and even if I had Jamie’s lips on my own and the truth unfolded on Alex cheating on Jamie, my curiosity comes for both parties and I feel intimidated as his fingers fiddle with the napkin, as his dark eyes are focused and I’ve accepted the fact that he knows nothing, because in some tales one knows all, the other knows nothing. But then maybe he was nothing for me to achieve and I excuse myself quickly, asking hastily where the bathroom is -

And the constant fear of entering a male bathroom still resides with me, I hate gendered bathrooms and sometimes the confused looks from foreigners, as they try to crack me and how much surgery I’ve had, so I just head to the cubicle and I lift my shirt up, coughing lightly, anxiety rising within me

Ok, Jamie kissed me

But what about Alex? I turn my head towards the door. I start tracing my fingers on the wooden door, hoping to get a blister as I keep coughing and I hope that it doesn’t reach the level of vomit as I look down to see myself with the said binder and I just tighten it up and hold a cough. Sometimes I feel like I’ll never be a man. 

Maybe it’s because someone who you loved told you they would never date you.

Love is a long process and sometimes it happens long after the person is gone and then you realize the metronome is on, only thankfully in the distance. 

I always wondered how much do people flinch thinking about me even if I haven’t properly dated anyone, I wonder how much does Nick even flinch if he hears anything I had ever given him to try or any of the times we would spent in our early teenage shops in music stores, just browsing and it’s weird because all those memories are quite shredded with dysphoria and I wonder how different would my history had been if I knew who I were and I didn’t have so much confusion and I would have the bizarre break ups and hookups, but instead I was stuck in a relationship with myself and whenever I would break myself, I would avoid the songs which circulated in my head then, so would I be an ex to myself as well?

Maybe we shouldn’t go denying our own twisted love as my curiosity escalated and fate seemed to dwell with pure reason and which side did I even have to choose or watch both colours dissolve in the water, away from me before I even choose to dip my toes in.

I feel like I know too much about him when he knows nothing and he is anxious about solely not knowing anything and I just slowly head back to see him rubbing his palms together and I can’t help but feel all my throat close up on me as I make my way and he smiles at me and I hold my gaze on his dark eyes far too long before back to the menu. Our silence and anxiety seem mutual. 

“Are you feeling okay? Coz... Jack texted me that you collapsed. If you feel tired at any point just tell me and I’ll well, we live next door so walking home sounds obvious. But if you ever need anything, just tell me, coz I can see what I can do in my powers.” He smiles at me.

He cheated on Jamie.

I wonder what the fuck even went on there. And it’s as if they both were sitting, not facing each other and I wonder how deep do the leftovers lie and how often do both even cry and if they even tried reconciling. 

I recall Jamie’s kiss on my lips.

I would even text him, but seeing Alex is a bit too much. 

“Yeah. Thanks.” I mutter and I hide behind the menu. Don’t sit on two chairs, Miles, because I can barely make sense of my own head and two relationships and cheating if I will with Jamie’s traces on my lips is not something I would ever want to handle. 

Do I put it out on a platter?

Did Jamie tell Alex anything?

I look out of the window, wondering how easily can fate even be rewritten and if I should have dreamt of Jamie in Alex’s jacket instead?

“Did you have a good time with Jamie?” He says, still scanning the menu and my fingers tremble, my lips go cold ironically before getting a shot of memory heat again, through out my whole body as Jamie had broken the kiss, eyes wide open. I just nod at Alex.

He’s not the one refusing, it’s me.


	8. Chapter 8

I feel like I am the culprit to all the tension and I barely speak through out the whole thing and it’s hard to eat even if I haven’t properly eaten since breakfast, it just gets worse with every bite and when Alex suggests leaving I just nod, both of splitting the bill and my finger even slips as I type the pincode and I have to do it again, still frustrated at how it gets hard to get a fucking new card and soon enough we leave the tablecloths with candles and onto the cold street and I don’t want Alex to touch me and it’s as if it’s a mantra which I keep repeating in my head, it’s as if I don’t want to hurt myself and Jamie for some reason when it could’ve just been a kiss, but I feel like there’s too many missing pieces in my ideal puzzle of Alex and we keep walking, as he holds his silence and I know how concerned he seems about my help and my body still tingles and aches for his touch, because he is the long lost lover I had lost at sea of dreams and he’s back

But I never tell him that. I can’t. 

And even then it wouldn’t make much sense, would it? If I am fated with him why am I canoodling some other guy, mainly Alex’s ex?

Gender dysphoria comes slowly, it seemed that I was slowly coming in terms with myself, even if I felt that there was something wrong with me liking men, it seemed more natural than liking women, but it seemed awfully off and I never understood how to pinpoint it and the more days would pass, the worse it would get, nothing seemed to be enough and the body seemed more foreign and far more bloated, all of a sudden the “maybe I’m just different” seemed to be screaming, the bloated feeling was getting worse than when it dawned on me what it was, I had nothing to wrap myself with, my own breasts choking me as I wondered what could I even do and bandages seemed to scream fear of breaking my back and I just waiting for it to go away, locking the door and being late for dinner, shuddering at every mention of my birth name and soon enough it seemed to dawn on me that I was much more deviant than I thought. It would keep getting worse and worse, myself screaming that I couldn’t be male, just because society still sees us as women and trans gay men are something beyond imaginable. 

With the world at turmoil more images flashing made me even doubt myself more and the question is always asked, was I binding because I wanted or because I didn’t want to and wanted to convince myself that perhaps I could fit?

And it was awful, feeling exposed as I would walk with a binder and hearing Nick that he would never date a transman yet he would encourage me to use Grindr and in the first few weeks it seemed awful, because you never know who is trans and who isn’t, you don’t even properly know how should a man even look?

And that’s when I would bind myself even harder just to feel it far too tight and wonder would a flatter chest even help? I could still see myself in the mirror and the faint effects of hormones. 

The problem is that even if I were to believe, not everyone would.

And the fear stretches to everyone who you talk to and I can’t help but keep my eyes on Al and he doesn’t know, Jamie just swallowed it, but just because he seems to, doesn’t mean that everyone else ever will. I wouldn’t. And even then, with Jamie not besides me the fear escalates just like at any moment of watching gay couples, the lump lightly rises that they’re both cis and the fear strikes down, would I still be considered in? It feels like no matter how much I wrap myself around with different things, it’s as if the core will always be dysphoric and there will never be sunshine in the reflection.

And the more you go around the more you see that everyone lacks self-confidence in every motion, from the smallest to hesitating before a kiss to a flushed cheek silence from Alex. And neither do I know what to say when you turn from fate, as we approach the underground and we still hold our silence even now if we’re sitting opposite, watching each other, as I still slouch ever since I’ve hit puberty, being the most unfortunate to have my chest grow first in my class and I didn’t want them up to the point that I asked why were they growing so early and soon enough everyone else caught up, but I was the one remaining in baggy and wondering when the fuck could I trim my hair shorter and I’m happy no one told me that I’d have to wait years and years

Because it’s good no one has the nerve to tell you

How fucking miserable anything is under your age of today.

And we depart with a kiss, at least we intend to, but I quickly kiss his cheek, barely feeling it, as if he were a ghost and he smiles weakly at me and once I’m inside I yank my clothes off, taking the binder off, revealing my naked torso and I take a big heavy breath in, before yanking the oversized shirt on the chair next to the coat hangers, pushing my hair back just for it to fall back and I press myself against the wall, feeling my phone vibrate, but I slide down, still catching my breath to see that my panic had taken twenty minutes off me and my deadline coming faster and faster, as I slide to see a text from Jamie.

Fuck.

I lock it back, pressing against my lip.

I shouldn’t be putting him through the trouble, if I’m not aware of my own feelings,

but I was.

I rinse and repeat with the hair, walking to the bathroom, irritated at the sudden period, sighing deeply. 

Dreams become a mashup of what you’ve seen and what you will see. I see the man in flames again and I wonder who he is, he remains silent until we decide to start talking and all I recall is his hair in flames, my body twisting and turning in sleep, dysphoria slowly creeping on about me and I just press myself harder into the mattress, feeling the ambiguity and bloatedness of my chest. 

It was a disastrous date. 

And Jamie is in my mind, it now consumed with images even if I happen to be bleeding and I have no idea how long will it last and my whole body proceeds aching, upwards from my stomach that I just blindly ruffle on all the medication lying on the bedside table along with the T pills. I sit up, my whole body still zoning out and one of my legs even asleep as I grab some ibuprofen, swallowing blindly and without water after a few struggles. I cross my arms on my chest, breathing in deeply-

I dreamt of Alex again at some point during my night.

He invited me on a dinner and I refused a kiss. I don’t even know the time and I’ve already got Jamie on my lips and his whole name rushes through out my whole body, attraction is far too easy and I know for sure that he’s accepted me. He’s also seen me and he’s kissed me. 

I bite the back of my palm, realizing how numb I am from everything and most likely I should be changing the period towel.

Do we ourselves make love exist or is it the other person who triggers it?

I struggle for a brief while.

I recall that Jamie rooms with Jack, but where does Jack live?

I grab my phone, closing my eyes and finding Jamie’s contact. It’s around four a.m. but he doesn’t seem the very awake type, yet Alex is besides me.

I look at the door of my bedroom, imagining him sleeping and I just presume that he’s asleep and he could be having an early shift.

‘Hey, are you awake by any chance?’ I text fast and I pray that he only gets a beep or is a sound sleeper. I browse around my e-mail for no reason and quickly check Facebook before I get a proper reply which I take a few seconds to open, my eyes closed until the screen calms down. 

‘Was about to head off. You ok? I sleep at around five.’ He texts me back and I feel my cheeks heat up and my throat slowly start to close up. I never got butterflies, I would always get my chest very heavy and my throat close up on me, my heart beat and my blood rush, my eyes wide open. I lay back on the bed, biting my lip.

I can’t ask him to come over. I have no idea where he lives and there is one bus which goes through all of town, but that would take him an entire hour or two depending from where to get here. Before I text back, he hastily replies.

‘I can come over if you want, you live in Al’s house, there’s a bus which goes there at night.’ I bite my lip. 

‘Nah, don’t worry, I’ll be ok.’ I text and I feel afraid of my own desire to see him, Nick would come over. We both bathe in silence and I recall the man in flames. It’s as if he was something else. I try to wave the thoughts away.

‘Hold on, I’ll come over. Feel free to nap until I come.’ I close my eyes, quickly texting a thanks and curling up in a ball, wondering why couldn’t I just knock on Al’s door or maybe the tide has shifted and maybe the man in flames has something to say.

But he doesn’t speak.

All I hear is some ringing and I jerk myself up, quickly opening the door until it dawns on me that I didn’t put on the binder. I welcome him in, as he walks in with a bag from System Bolaget and I wonder what he bought the night before and he quickly glances at my chest and just kicks off his heeled boots. He’s in a new navy blue coat. I excuse myself for a moment and quickly adjust the binder on the chest, before coming back.

“Whatever makes you comfortable, Miles and... sorry.”

“Jamie, you came. That’s all that...” I yawn, shaking my head. “Matters.”

Can you actually be happy with the way you look?  
Can it be ok not to do anything? I had wondered much past, leaning against the sink to see a confused face with longer hair which pains me to recall, it is in nights like this when looking at the mirror makes me realise how long I have been away, how long have I keep pushing everything from parents telling me that my haircut resembled a man’s. Everytime you show a painting, where a man is gay, I forget that it’s activism, but my parents always recall  
And always remind-  
It’s worse than water on the face in the morning, because water doesn’t linger in the ribs on the whole way on the pendeltåg and when you head out in a different region you don’t ask yourself who are you.

It’s the anxiety and confusion of fate.

Maybe you should take those who you are sure would destroy the moon for you?

I don’t hold and I grab his coat collar, as he nearly loses the grip on the plastic bag and he just leans a bit lower to drop the drink safely and pulls me closer, pushing me so much tighter that I get anxious, because my binder doesn’t fully flatten me and I feel him crushed against me and it’s a mix of light dysphoria, surprise, as I start feeling the taste of light cigarettes and he smells right out of a shower, his hair against my fingers as I stroke the back of his head, feeling anxiety rise, as at the same time, my body loosens and I feel as if I were in a cradle, my mind shutting off, as my lips become more vicious and I yanks his coat off-

I’m on my period.

And a cramp reminds me of that.

I pull away, groaning and with a light sigh, Jamie looks at me flushed and his hair in a new arrangement. 

“Sorry, I-”

“It’s ok, let’s just... put that on hold for a few days. I’m not sure I’m eager to lose my virginity on my period. I’ll be a dysphoric mess then.” I sigh, words coming out of me as soon as the thoughts do. I blink at my subtleness. Or rather, lack of it and Jamie just looks back at me, a bit flushed in his dark eyes as well. I wave my hands. “No, I meant, shit- I just... I... fuck.”

I do want to fuck him, just that it’s an awful wreck already with a binder and I don’t think I’ll handle thinking of bleeding either.

Shit.

Jamie scratches his head. 

“Whatever... you feel comfortable with.” He pauses, looking down. “I’m up for it, if you are, I mean... at your needed time.”

I feel the distance pierce us, but instead I give out a small smile. 

“Sorry, I never... I never even y’know. I never fucked anyone or was fucked for that matter. You’re the first bloke I properly kissed actually.” I mutter. “It’s a mess, figuring out your sexuality. I had a girlfriend and it was a mess, I wasn’t attracted but straight men just revolted me and I dunno, that was a disaster and she was my best friend’s sister, whom I had a crush on-”

I see Nick in my head.

“It was long ago and fucked up. I just felt like that would give me some gateway. It was fucked up. Sexuality is a fucked up thing. I didn’t know why I couldn’t get sexually aroused by her and I didn’t want myself to be with men, besides... Nick but he didn’t want me. He’s one of those who think to be a gay guy, you should... be a guy, really.” I exhale. I’m a mess and I become a mess in seconds. Jamie walks towards me, hands in pockets before putting his hands around me, yet watching me. “Sorry, I-”

“Yeah, I just... yeah.” I just put my head on his shoulder. I don’t say anything, because I’ve spoken too much and I kiss him, shattering all my thoughts on love and resolutions.


	9. Chapter 9

It gets worse every day with each noise and scroll, because all of a sudden it’s really not ok to be gay and trans. I look at a sleeping Jamie, to just remind myself that I care too much, maybe I am right, maybe men do distance themselves from it and I’m the sole one who cares, because I have no one else, is that it?

I quickly head over to the mirror, the day already shredded to the dark, as I curse, feeling a bit cold even if the heating is on everywhere and I quickly pee, sighing, rubbing my eyes, maybe that’s why I’m not male.

And the thoughts just start luring me in, that because people think it’s wrong, I can’t be one, that I should be embracing my vagina or whatever, because male is wrong. I stand up to look at myself in the mirror, whining at the small acne breakout and at least the razor burns had started healing. It had been awful, it’s as if even my skin doesn’t want me. 

I feel my breath become sharper and I press myself against the tub, wincing lightly until I hear steps and the door opens with a shirtless Jamie. I’m without my binder but it’s not even that I’m without it for myself, it’s that he doesn’t look down and stands next to me, pressed against the bathtub, asking me if I were alright, still yawning and putting his hand on my head. Sometimes you need to be reminded that you’re loved. I take his hand and press it on my cheek. The desire to not leave. I still feel like shit, though. 

Once you get out of education the world is much more delusional than I had ever thought, as if the whole world had much more problems with understanding and feeling reality than I ever had.

I like watching the windows go one by one at night and I wonder if the war swallows if so will the forest or would our living souls be the first to go?  
We all want to be called perfect beings but we’re not sure about that regarding ourselves, so it’s better to blame someone else in inaccuracy.

"So do you like it in Sweden?" I shrug at first, thinking of a proper answer.  
"I do like it a lot, frankly, but I’ve had a few incidents when you realise why people prefer DIY or there’s a whole cult around staying at home, because those who decide sometimes to either trim your hair or hand you post over will be the scummiest because there’s a whole cult of having less interaction as possible from what I’ve seen. I dunno, when I didn’t get my binder at the post coz they didn’t like my ID for no fucking reason, the guy did a post-it note so that everyone would call him even when he wasn’t at the post, kind of stands out. Or when I’ve decided to get a haircut next time myself so that I don’t get misgendered. It’s stuff like that. It took me two days to get my fucking binder frankly. He told me not to do post again and I just wanted it over, that really hits home because I know I don’t have all Swedish ID yet and when I called the post and everyone, all the replies were we have no idea what’s his problem, go speak to him. That kind of strains it, because when you come here you’re shoved that you’re not good enough for something at a very small scale, it gets to you because of what you’ve faced before and that fucks me up. But then I like the isolation, when I came I got told that it’s cold everyone is distant and hates each other, I like that. But not when they don’t allow me to get my binder. But when you come from people misgendering you all the time, a few ruckuses isn’t too bad. It just pushes you into being in your house more which is something you want, but you don’t want by force. I want to have an option rather than know of incompetence which doesn’t tolerate me. On top of that the binder person was a guy, when you grow up being forced into being a gender you’re not and male being the worst thing possible in your eyes by society you look at such individual if you can even call them that and ask, am I that? So it’s like dysphoria on dysphoria and you’re fighting for a fucking binder."

I pause on it.

“But don’t get me wrong, I like it, I really do, I wouldn’t have stayed or I would’ve gone elsewhere. I really do. I just get scared at times, because you’re still shoved in the face by the world that you should stay where you are or at most move to where your beloved is from, fuck the laws... That’s really fucked up.” I run a hand through my hair, watching his dark eyes keep absorbing me, as we lay in bed, barely touching still keeping some sort of shallow innocence with the lights on. “I just get scared.”

I swallow my own fear.

“Because it’s a nightmare to get the documents and now everyone is moving here, because where else do you? Before London used to be liberal and now it’s all white washed, you don’t really get anyone anymore, just Brits and I’m not comfortable knowing that my country axes anyone, myself included... So what the fuck do you do then?”

“I’m Brazilian. If I was trans, I’d be so fucked. People just call transwomen transvestites and that’s as far as it goes...” He pauses, sighing. “I only know rude words in portuguese for trans men, it’s really fucked up. And because of the fucking parade in Sao Paolo we’re considered great. Because of a fucking parade. Try walking the streets of Rio without being mugged, in this case not even queer or not.”

Jamie rubs his eyes.

“Me and Al... we were in Brazil, with Jack actually, quite a few years ago and we nearly got knifed and we just left.” Jamie pauses for a bit. “And we decided to take time off in Spain, that’s when Alex cheated on me.”

I feel the nausea of his pain come back, as he even sits up slightly before pulling the covers over us, reminding of the ups and downs of Swedish heating. 

“I can’t stand Spain ever since. Not that I even travel a lot these days, we’ve all just been here. Alex has been excited about working more, improving his Swedish, Jack just keeps writing and I try to get my thoughts on paper, I guess.”

“What do you put to paper?” I interrupt him, actually eager to know, as I wonder if he’s the painter then, but my conclusions are shot down as quick as they came by Jamie himself. 

“I’m playwright, like my dad actually.” He smirks. “Have you ever heard of Brazilian novellas?”

“Like novels?” I ask, a bit confused and confirming.

“Tv shows, like... soap operas, I think. My dad wrote those. He’s rather big and frankly they’re really shit, but he’ll be paying my bills for ever. And he died recently, so I inherited a fair amount and just get allowance if you must.” I get confused a bit, how his face doesn’t change when he mentions his father death, which stings me a little even if I hadn’t even tried checking my inbox for e-mails for weeks, even if my parents bitterly tried to say things that should’ve been mended. “So... I’m happy, I guess, he pays for his bigotry and nothing my mother can do. She has her doubts now, thankfully looking back since I’m 27 and no girls near and all of a sudden when people start thinking, they realize who might be gay, after all.” 

I just wait a moment, as he watches me, I wonder if I could’ve done that, but I understand that my relation is far from better. 

“What about Alex? Jack?” I quickly add Jack’s name, as Jamie just shrugs.

“Alex’s parents are dead to him. He rarely speaks of them... Dad was killed, he never even told me the whole story. Doesn’t even allow me to speak of the mom. Regarding Jack, no one really knows. You know how you’ve got that friend which knows you all over but you don’t really know anything, well, not much, that’s Jack. Me and Alex thought he grew up in an orphanage because once I can’t even remember why but he showed his birth certificate which has no parents. Which also makes you frankly want to pat him on the back, for being read. And he’s paperback as well. He ghost writes a lot, though. Like a lot. Signed a lot of NDAs and shit. I found out one and he told me he would yank everything out of me, if I tell. He’s got some good contacts, fuck knows how.” He smiles at me, a bit distracted, before going back on topic. “Alex calls him different names, because he’s so... eerie. But I’ve seen enough to talk of this post-midnight.”

Jamie chuckles and I decide to keep the talk for the light of day, then. 

“He’s just a weird fellow who frankly deserves his luck. He’s lovely, you’ve met him.” He hand motions at me.

“Yeah, he’s quite nice... just a bit odd, I guess.” I shrug, still feeling a bit uncomfortable regarding Jack, but I presume everyone is and I wonder how come he had eased and how I had gotten much more than tense, wondering about Alex and where would fate check-mate me and what the fuck had Jamie met and frankly Jack didn’t seem to be very settling as information either. I try to push it away, but I had seen Jack wear a cross, I think.

“Anyway, he’s lovely. Alex isn’t bad either... just we went wrong, I guess.” He looks down and I get to look at him more openly, before he raises his gaze at me again. I wonder how pleading of revealing is my look, Jamie just sighs. “I dunno, I just didn’t want someone who didn’t want me... that’s how I felt. I didn’t know so much about Alex and that made me realize that nothing I do would change him, frankly, so I guess I allowed him to be someone else’s problem. I’m ok with fighting and struggling in a relationship, but if there’s movement. You just know when to end.

And I knew that Alex had decided to end it.” Jamie stiffens.

“He said he cheated because he couldn’t take it anymore, he couldn’t take dating me. 

So that was it.” He suggests to sleep, as he motions for me to turn away as he spoons me, putting his head on my shoulder, it feels heavy, but he kisses my neck and I ease, feeling surrounded by his scent and light cigarettes. I could even pinpoint the brand since I’ve always been surrounded by smokers, I ease

I ease.

I hate how being a transman becomes an argument with feminism on both sides of discussions because to ignorant men it becomes some obscure feminism bullshit, because you’ll be a woman with a vagina and then on the other side you’ve got a worse battle field ranging from other women calling you a traitor to accusing you of not being feminist for not defending Nicki Minaj of sorts. 

And how can even be a fair discussion when I had just decided to agree to one last meeting with old friends and the girl circle from old childhoods I no longer held a place in seemed even more damned than deemed. Nick refused to go as we had stopped talking and Agyness had insisted on dragging me along. It felt far too crowded back then, as boys were still discussed until the arguments seemed to be rolling around and their acceptance was my question if they thought that I had never changed because for them I was still female or because I had never really changed and always been myself. Usually I would meet up with them a few times per year, constantly texting Nick and the last times when I came out as male, Nick was automatically presumed as a friend for once than a boyfriend. 

Agyness would kick someone under the table and I was the silent agreement no one should even mention and they barely spoke of me moving and I could only think of Nick and I would still fall asleep, head under the pillow, bags barely packed of his lips I’ve never felt to let me drift away forever because nothing lasts for an eternity, the only feeling we get is the solid desire of being forever. 

When you stop being something the world wants, you’re discarded and all the fighting resolves to nothing but your own shattered red desire. 

I wake with those thoughts just to look around a drolling Jamie and I notice his light stubble and I know I’ve still got a way to go. I look out of the window, realizing that I never closed the curtains and there’s some odd ease, because we never accept a simple stone happiness because we’re always told to just accept our fate as plain misery and the desire to have more is what keeps us alive and consuming. When you’re happy you barely want anything. 

I just watch him. In this case it would be wanting him which drives a force and my own internalized misery in the form of depression isn’t helping. I wait for a good while for him to wake, barely moving and then I start browsing things on my mobile, recalling that I barely have any breakfast and I figure that he shouldn’t be waking in the next half an hour and I brush his cheek, before dressing up, putting on the binder with a sigh of relief, as Jamie rolls onto his back, pulling the covers over himself.

I grab a notebook, scribbling that I would be back soon, poking my finger against the notebook thinking of a doodle and then I just quickly draw a caricature of him, before heading back to the door, as if I had been leaving some solitude again, as I close the door, I hear another door open and Alex is there, waving lightly. 

We greet each other when it’s no longer morning. And it;s as if I had started a new life and I have no idea where everything resides and what even dwells within me, what would fate even be, as we both board the elevator, barely talking. I don’t even recall all the ideas I might’ve had this morning, both men shrouding my imagery, as if the idea that Nick’s words were true seems to be dissolving like powder, because we need to believe that there is some good in this world, somehow, as I smile at the shorter man, crossing my arms and waiting for the elevator doors to open, because I can’t tell him that I’ve got his ex-boyfriend in my bed and neither can I let the credits roll because I don’t know how life ends. 

“You going to the store, then?”

“Yeah, you getting pick and mix?” I smirk, not mocking or anything as we walk down to see snow slowly start melting because life slips through fingers and Stockholm isn’t really snowy anyway. I button up the coat to the last buttons, slipping my hands into my pockets, my head still buzzing from feminism and the discussion with Agyness, where they started stating that my hormones weren’t enough, that I was never a man in their eyes, as they became faceless and that society has bigger problems to deal with than males. 

I don’t know who I hate more rad fems which are straight or those which don’t have men and follow their ideology. Is the evil which bends the rules for themselves or which follows them worse?

I don’t know.

But by the end of the day, we’re all selfish and just like you care about your life, your hormones I get annoyed at the noise which claims that I’m not male and would ban hormones for me if they could and would split my veins open, like the letter I received before moving here from one of Agyness’ friends and I knew that I would never come back with Nick never speaking to me for months. So both love and friends betray just because you happen to have a vagina. As if the realization of who I was, changed me. So maybe I just end up hating everyone who happens to have an issue with anyone trans works. And just like you won’t care about the people who want you dead, neither do they. It becomes an exchange of flattered goods. 

I shake my head, to get the thought off as Alex lights a cigarette and I try to calm down, looking at him, as if he were some old friend and as if I had been walking with Nick. We don’t seem to mention Jamie at all, as he asks me what am I getting which is frankly the plain reply of some fruit and cereal, as I recall Jamie either being vegan or vegeterian, so I would end up musing a bit on the aisles. Love is far too easy to scrap off, I blush, as I look back at Alex, we can never think of fate properly, because it ends up a road we don’t know, so of course we go wherever our feet take us.


	10. Chapter 10

I missed Nick as a friend too much because he had talked to me about how he would come to visit me and try to find a beautiful Swedish boyfriend, but it was all gone now and the first months were just downright miserable and went under the slogan of how do you even make friends anymore?

Missing Nick, now leaving him alone as a lost friend shredded me because I would never be able to speak to him again and as time passes and neither of us speak, even forgiving seems bleak because we know the other would yell at the other’s distance. He didn’t even bother to find out how did I make it and neither did I find out how his university is going. 

The first few months were tired and filled with isolation and coping all loss from places I would eat out after school to feeling nothing in the apartment at all, roaming from room to room, never feeling calm as the balconies were filled with Swedish flags and there was an immense desire to have snow just because it would give the illusion of everything being dead and now watching everything spring to life when I was still scared and some rebirth of things I've seen before was just plain odd. 

Alex doesn't offer me a cigarette and I keep looking at him, as he apparently seemed in bed with thought last night and I wondered how his nights were filled and it was far from something I would ever ask Jamie about, let alone Jack which seemed to flutter about us.

I haven't even properly met Jack and just talked to him, a few hours can play out however they want from taking nothing and wasting themselves as blank paper to revealing a lifetime.

But Nick still stomped on my thoughts as I would drink tea on the floor, thinking of him and how life just stopped revolving around him and too many distant memories of how even before I had come out, when he was out we would just end up looking at each other even in busses and laughing out as we thought of haircuts for me and I knew that I had loved him even if I hadn’t known myself and my love for him was the anchor for me to know what I actually knew about for years and now he was gone, because old loves still ache and the wounds are forever open because scars can always be visible on the skin even if you got some lovely tattoos on the side. And Nick himself becomes a reminder which I don’t need every day that men wouldn’t go for me, so looking at Alex and Jamie feels a bit odd and off, feeling loved or wanted is always odd when people told you that everything was wrong with you and it’s the reason for an insane hour. 

The same words circulate in your head, no matter how much you push them away because no one will ever tell you they find your body attractive and that it’s a man’s body, one thing is your own refusal of body and another when Agy ran after me and took my hand, saying that she thought about it and that the patriarchy enforced me views that women are weak and that’s why I decided that I am a man. That I gave in.

And in that moment I wanted to slap her, but then she’d accuse me of patriarchy, that I became a violent man. My hands started aching and when I came back home, I thought I would thrash the whole house down, instead I just packed and spent three hours trying to come, knowing that I could never fix the fact that I couldn’t see myself as a man, because for people I would always be some female traitor and that I would never bring use to society and leaving seemed like suicide, because I gave up trying to convince people. 

Hatred of the self makes everything worse. I hated myself that I couldn’t link my body to what I wanted and that no one would see me as a man, claiming that they knew better, because they saw my vagina and they wanted me as a woman and desperation trails for months and hands ache from all the anxiety and sitting down on the balcony, head between the legs and crying makes nothing. Because yeah, you can hate women, yeah you can hate that one man you loved, but it’s never that all women are bed or cis men are bad. But they will always think that all trans men are bad.

And time passes and I don’t even know what I had done the whole week, because I hated myself so much, because I couldn’t be loved as a man. And I knew that everything seemed to be demanding that I would just like we pray for an error to be gone, that I would be that. That people prayed that I would stop existing by solely finishing myself off and preferably that my blood would not stain and that I would not take any ground, that I would not take any space or any heart for that matter. Or that the men I would drag with me would stop being gay because for many women, it’s a shame if a man is gay. I grew up with girls whining on that and I had wanted it gone so desperately. And it was okay, because the world seemed to shift and the more I sat on that coffee meet up the more revolted I felt, passing the phones around and I felt very insignificant and I felt as if I had been spying on opinions which I should have never heard leave their small heads. But it did.

Alex happens in a haze and when he leaves the heart just keeps beating fast, trying to reminiscence that he exists and how some relationships take slower to assemble and some are written on the veins, yanking you from a fall while others caress the stars. 

I still feel like I can never believe the face of people who seem to think that there is something wrong with anyone who will not see their female problems above all. And maybe that’s why I leave and it’s odd to see that things build up in time, like odd Lego block towers built by kids, much taller than they are. It makes me question how did it happen. 

You can talk about inequality forever.

And no one will ever talk about how it feels to be peeled down by society and reminded always that what matters is how nature built your cocoon and people focus on appearance too much, we always think of how everything looks rather than the memories which drain us with surprise and we will think of beautiful places rather often than memories or because something pleased us as we looked at it, rather than the things. But maybe we rely on that because we had been alone for so long. And being stripped down only reminds us that somehow no one is looking at us. And we follow the stereotypes in our head ready to be built, up to the point that when I see single old men I always wonder or rather presume they should be gay and the associations start going in the head on how must it be and my own thoughts vine rather often on, clinging.

Growing up was a pain, wondering and hearing so many things on how gay men had to be miserable to compose, draw or make anything and because only a gay man could be miserable that would end dragging on, like a rattling snake with all it’s thought and because of the body I was given I would end up thinking even more how I couldn’t even be properly and artistically miserable, that I wouldn’t happen to end up locking myself up to see the misery reflected in the night. 

And with age you only seem more lost, numbers only remind of the time passing.

Body dysphoria will end up taking all of the lungs with the thinking from any misery which drags on from bottom to chest. And a lot is asked of would this mess happen if society wouldn’t be showing me how flat chested men are and how all of them happen to have a sock in their boxers. I never understood why does it have to be a unified thing between the dick and balls in ads. We all know what’s expected to be there, because they wouldn’t show someone with a vagina, because men have all the views of women wrong and of course someone who is presumed to be a woman would never want to be a man, would always love the vagina and would never cry about not having a penis.

When I was young, I ended up raiding my mother’s magazines, which becomes far too autobiographical to even speak of in the mind and I just look at Alex, realizing that I’m not out to him yet, just to Jamie and Jack. And in those magazines I remember there was some Freudian article on how all women wanted penises and it was rather lengthy and it seemed to make sense to me. I didn’t understand how could this apply to all women, but I agreed. And there had been too many memories which I would never look back upon, because none of us want to live a lie life. And only when we seem to calm down it is when we look back on our memories which we’ve formed knowing ourselves.

The more people misgender me the more I see that it doesn’t matter how much you transition, it ends up being for yourself because no one will bat an eyelash to see it as an act of violence and no one will stop themselves from assuming what your skin tells them you were assigned at birth as.

And looking at Alex makes me more than ponder different questions, as I wonder how long would it be until he would let go of the leather jacket and what amazes me is that you can still dream as you walk down the same or the newly seen streets, feeling sense of reality, not just from a insomnia filled night with a moving head. But then what if we’re all lucid dreaming all the time from all the things we’ve touched and the saddest thing you’ll ever hear is that you never really touch anything, it’s the small space between atoms which causes the touch feel, so we end up never fully even feeling love, just the closest distance, as if it were a wall all over again. 

When it comes to either of them, does it become greed and which one do you juggle and how come you can destroy a canvas in one day and fall in love with another while days of growing up where loitering in melancholy and there had been nothing besides the fuzz in the head screaming to just let go, clutching onto the desks and no one ever asking why

because everything seems to be connected with the fact that no one really likes a trans man, because it’s never as quirky as being a butch “girl” was. No one wants another man, because I will be to blame for all the men who have done things I have never ever thought of, while the women who will fling me outside my life will never be held accountable because the past is easier to blame than a crooked present feminism. 

I could never look at Alex in the eye, as we walked and I wondered how do you even speak to someone like that. He asks about groceries and I just run down through my list and I wonder how much does he know he’s lost. And I wonder how much would it feel and how I suddenly felt lost again, wondering how come his jacket, which still looks like it’s only been worn a day has managed to make itself into my mind. It’s surely not a souvenir and I wonder how many of them have even been manufactured and who had I seen and how could I see his face as I was growing up and how come he had been the man with the dreams. 

“I think the Devil’s wings are made of dreams.” Nick had told me once, as he had sat outside with me on the balcony, we had all the lights turned off and the sky was pitch black, the outlines of clouds were the only company. “Because just think of it... if God does exist, what if the Devil controlled the fate of everyone?”

He had exhaled, wrapping his arms around as I watched him, wondering how much of my fallen love would trail behind me and after him and it was back in those sultry moments when I believed that he would still be into me. And I had the thought while growing up that what if I had thought I was trans because Nick was into men, but as time went on and he rejected me I’d never felt so much like a man in my life and it seemed like my gender was the only thing I could confide in, tucked in my room and eating the same pick and mix Alex would get. 

“That would explain why there’s so many wars and why people become so twisted and also... doesn’t it make a weird point that the Devil was once trusted? Would that mean that the worst are the betrayers? Never people who you never knew?”

And I had looked at Alex, wrapping my scarf tighter, feeling odd about confessing that Jamie was in my bed and that Alex didn’t know that I was trans. 

“So how did you get the cool jacket, though?” Even if all I see is curiosity in Alex’s brown teddy bear eyes, he points at the back, smirking and I wonder how he still wakes up and what does happen, when Jamie leaves from him and how deep his regret had been, because the now disfunct couple showed more than distress of a dead relationship, how Alex had held Jamie in his arms and I wondered how deep actually cheating had hurt both of them and what had been running through Alex’s mind, but I couldn’t ask that even if we all jump at anyone gay who we know, as if that’s all our love circle could ever be, but we don’t ever fight it or deny it. I do end up being attracted to men, anyway. 

“Oh, I actually ended up buying in a small store in Gamla Stan, to be honest. They said it was handmade, there were maybe two or three of them when I came in first?” Alex shrugged, quickly checking his phone for the recently popped up notification and I wondered how often has Jamie taken the night bus to end up with his ex-boyfriend and I wondered what thoughts would go through the Brazilian’s head, watching the city suddenly go smaller in size, cars vanish and the roads become still and dark. I wondered why I thought of them but it was merely because I never had the guts to start a relationship, let alone even ask either of them about it. 

I always feel weird getting groceries with someone, because I feel odd kind of thinking is it okay to get a whole cart? Do you get the trolley? Alex ends up taking a basket and I follow, wondering what the fuck do vegans even eat, because before everything fell apart with my mom, I would end up working at gran’s butcher place and meat ended up being a big part of my life. Is soy milk vegan? What does he even eat? I end up taking the phone, thinking and Alex looks at me. Instead I keep pressing my phone against my lips, as we walk past the bakery and I end up going back to get croissants, praying. 

“It’s a lovely jacket.” Was my closing, before we end up going through the cereal section and spend maybe half an hour on the pick and mix, as I even manage to remember the lost fruit and panically get a salad. Alex ends up eying my choice of food and I pray that I look vegan enough, but I had ended up taking a carton of milk for myself and nachos. I’d end up getting Jamie out of bed anyway, apparently or rummaging through all the drawers, thinking what would he even eat. We could eat out though. That would involve leaving the house. 

“There’s nothing else in that store to be honest.” Alex smirks, getting far too many jelly beans. “I’m more of an H&M sort of person, Jamie’s the one who gets a kick from Acne and so does Jack, but I’m no heir or ghost writer.” 

He smiles. Alex seems to be musing on his own words and it feels like I’ve seen him tonight, crouching to see the new chocolates for the pick and mix and I wonder how much had I seen of someone who wasn’t him. And who had I loved all the time, but instead we pay and I end up inviting him to hang out again tomorrow, apologizing for my awkwardness and just reassuring myself that with nothing definite with Jamie, perhaps I could juggle my awkward thoughts a bit more, before I would realize what would end up trapping me, whether it would be a person or some belief in some Devil drawn fate, just as said by Nick who said that love was a Devilish thing, probably because he really didn’t want me. 

“Me and Jack, actually, after I found out that Alex cheated... I was distressed and I offered him to join me in Lisbon. I didn’t want to go back to Stockholm and it was a cheap bus ride, anyway, not that we didn’t have the money, either.” Jamie shrugs as he tells me this, when I get back and he starts unloading the bags for me, right after I had entered the door and he grinned at my note, welcoming me in, as if it had all been there all along. I don’t even ask what led him to that and I wonder if he had seen us as he was on his first morning smoke. “And we had hooked up a few times, I was very depressed and I knew that Jack had liked me. I think... the oddest thing, was that he said that it meant nothing, that it was just fucking, because he knew I wasn’t keen on it. It was really weird, to have someone openly acknowledge no romantic attraction in between, I guess.”

He notices my concern.

“I don’t mean that about you in any way... I just recalled, because I dreamt again of Lisbon, I do rather often, I think of both of us drinking on staircases and not saying anything, because we couldn’t unwind ourselves and that was the biggest anti-climatic relationship I’ve ever had which was as stale as a dream. But it always comes back to me in dreams, as if Jack is bleeding about it. I don’t know why.

Or maybe I don’t want to know.”


	11. Chapter 11

I think it’s awful that we can never make everything stop, it will be the world which dissolves us. We will never be able to stand up to anything, regardless if we want to or not because everything leads up to what was wanted by whomever in the first place. And somehow it makes sure that I don’t speak in any way, that everything should go past me and no one will ever notice the blood on the pavement and will walk on and I will see them crashing through me, but they will only notice the ghost me if I tell them they’re wrong and they’ll find a way to kill again.

I think one of the hardest things to accept is that there was no other self, that I had always been a man meaning that I was always confused, that all the memories were I thought I was a woman were all false, I had been confused and always male. People really don’t talk how while growing up you may identify as a tomboy and it might not be okay to say that women can be everything, that you’re just a tomboy and even uttering that being a tomboy for you at least meant being male will be considered misogynistic because if there is nothing to hold onto for someone who identifies as female other than a trans man they should rethink their own gender perhaps. And saying such things or even thinking ends up being harsh, but in reality I’m just angry that no one slapped my face and told me I’m male when I always have been and I wish men would be told that it’s okay to be men. It’s surely better than being a transphobic woman.

I knew that I wouldn’t be naked the way I wanted, I knew that I wouldn’t have sex the way I wanted and I hoped that it wouldn’t be as frustrating as masturbating hopefully. I hoped that I could lose myself in the moment and that it would somehow be just as magical as if I could have the body I’ve always wanted and it wasn’t even going to be the partner I’ve always wanted. 

Jamie offered to eat out since my cooking skills were pretty much mild and eatable and he seemed to have money to waste which made me wonder how much longer would his month even last, but as we dressed up, I still saw him tense from recalling Madrid and Lisbon but instead he grabbed me, pushing me against the closet, instantly letting my tongue in as we grinded against each other and I knew he was desperate for a memory cleanse and I was more than open to give him my memories of some love which couldn’t shatter so easily, which I was confused but believed in now.

Once he pulled back, I still stood with him entirely lingering in my mouth, but I just nodded to nothing in particular as he was dressing up to go greet the outside cold. 

Going day after day seemed a bit too much anticipating and very much filled with something you could only dream of and with his fingers on the back of my neck I could only wonder about Alex and how had the other man even managed to fit into my life and in what way would that even be? Had he solely been the one to lure me into Jamie’s arms? And who was I supposed to end up with? I wasn’t too keen on humanity’s allowance of dating even if you don’t wake up next to them until that day when you die. 

I never understood but at the same time, when I was growing up and had been perceived as female unfortunately, I was stuck in a dorm with a different girl and I would end up kicking her boyfriend out, just so that I could sleep and she had told me that they had decided to break up right after the summer camp would end. We never spoke after said camp either and I had been envious of those people who ended up close with their roomies, as I never got that. Instead both me and Nick would hang out, sneaking out to sit in the kitchen and talk about whomever we had been crushing on then. I had tried girls at the moment and we had been discussing a girl. Nick was slowly wondering where he had started to fit, but instead he’d listen to me and sometimes when the night was too dark and sleepy I would catch him looking at me and I would smile back, it felt as if we were floating-

When I get too lonely or too paranoid, I wonder if I had ever made the right moves in life, if it was a good decision to freelance because I’ve heard too much negative and jokes ranging from my salary to if I was really doing it for free that it had started messing with my head, as if I was holding the cord of the phone and letting it not only twist its curved cord with my fingers but with my throat as well, allowing it be sliced open-

I had missed him and I had loved him.

I thought that maybe if I had stayed a woman maybe he would’ve gone for me. 

But the thing about the people who don’t go for you, they will never go for you. 

And somehow it had been too hard to let go-

It’s not that I didn’t like Jamie greatly, just that my mind had become my enemy and growing up and leaving a household with the words that no one would ever love me started messing around with my head, once the first bliss was gone and he was in the house, sitting besides me as I would draw and the first time I had to take off the binder because I had reached my eight hours per day limit and my ribs had started aching.

I expected him to stare at my chest, but instead he just smiled and I stood in front of him for a bit before he kissed me again.

Once in a fight, you’ll never stop being paranoid. 

My head would start running closer to my sleep, dissolving with some conceived fear of actually falling to pieces. 

I wanted a bath, but in Sweden barely anyone had it, so buying anything to drown yourself as you dream, was a crude solution to the hanging yourself in a shower. 

And how come depression made sure you wore the curtain of misery as if the world were a funeral seemed to be reality. That’s why you miss people, because you can’t afford to be happy on your own or beloveds. 

It didn’t make sense and on the last and final day of my period I sat on the bathroom, wondering how come sex had been so anticipated and exciting, running a hand through my hair. Checking the time, wondering if five people to one stating that wearing a binder during sex is enough. And I sat there for a while, still recalling Nick and how we would both laugh and how I had spilled to him about Alex years on, still in that kitchen, him entirely sleepy and laying on his stomach in front of me to tell me exactly how he had felt that everything had been written on the stars and how everything had been fate.

Then how come I was losing my virginity to another man then? How come I had wanted Jamie to touch me all over the place, to push me further and how come I ended up locking myself in the bathroom as Jamie had the telly on with some random trash tv show while reading Visions of Cody. 

Living with no schedule and dead lines ended up being a big question of why not. why not have Jamie stay over? Why not meet up with him nearly all the time? Why not even go ad check out the cat Alex had to babysit from work.

Alex called Jamie in, who had dragged me with him, as Alex just confirmed with his ex-boyfriend that both were now staying over in the same apartment. Alex had lit a cigarette, offering Jamie one as we both headed in to check out the cat. 

It was odd to watch a silent Alex, wondering outloud as we had one date and it was more than obvious that he had somehow lost. He didn’t have his quiff today, allowing his hair to be entirely messy and ended up matching his insides. But I tried not to stare at him much, not allowing myself to dissolve into some childish nostalgia. 

What if it had all been my fault and what would’ve Nick even said, laying on the floor, hearing that I had indeed giving up the man in the jacket for someone else?

After seeing Nick in my day dreams all covered up with the curtains filled with stars which he covered himself in, as if it would be his veil to escort him to death I observed the cat which would end up fighting against the small toy mouse handed to the front paws to beat up with the back paws. Jamie ended up playing with the cat the most, as I could feel Alex’s puppy brown eyes just keep staring at me until we had left. 

All days become an odd cold mixture as I would wait for myself to cool down, recalling how Jamie’s tongue and mouth had tasted and how come now I would be able to push much much further. It feels nauseous, anxious and far too threatening to actually do something. It didn’t help that we had a small discussion before, because I had told him that the period should soon be over but I had his hands under my shirt so that hadn’t been helping to think really straight. 

It had been odd to actually go exactly how Jamie had mocked it softly, calling it dick shopping and stating that it didn’t matter because most likely right on the exact day or midway I would decide or we would both what we had both felt like. And how do you even deliver the message to the person you want to fuck that you’re actually entirely ready to just pin them down?

In the end no matter how much you prepare for sex, all that matters is that you really want that someone between your legs, no matter how much you goofed off by pressing dildos on display against the person in some shop named after a greek goddess, just to attract possibly everyone to initiate sex, not just during Pride week, which sometimes should resemble how living life should be if you’re gay. We need to end up being proud of who we sleep with or not, of those who we love and what makes us different. I had always wanted to walk pride holding who I was, a gay trans man since people don’t even know I exist. Hell, I don’t know I exist. 

I didn’t even know what I felt like, but I knew that I had wanted him in my bed, as I slowly crept on him, even knowing that he was watching me in full and in that split second I realized how much either of us had been anticipating, with each touch and hug and by the end of the day, when you’re trans it also takes a lot of discussion as you can’t just turn off the lights and maybe because we had rinsed it through and through, Jamie asking me how I would prefer everything to be called and having the binder on, maybe-

We just really wanted to fuck. It had really boiled down to that with no other further consequence. It’s much messier than you expected and nothing really flows, besides your own sexual frustration which seems to be binding and seems to be tightening at all all times, etching for release, but then it becomes a virtue of holding it. 

I had dragged Jamie to the bedroom, where he had pinned me down and I didn’t even know where we were going with everything or what had we discussed, I didn’t know what exactly even meant besides grinding against him in a desperate manner, allowing both moans to mix and no one even knows whose body is whose. I didn’t take off my binder and he just dug his fingers deeper to make sure I would feel it through the life fabric and I just moaned against his touch. 

Jamie heard his phone vibrate, so he just quickly held the button to turn off as he continued going further for my neck, stopping at the hemline and going back up again, as I pulled on his shirt to reveal him. I couldn’t help but feel anxious from seeing him shirtless but all I did was pull him closer to me much more. But the thing is, that we;re still all nervous and we will stumble, like Jamie taking a good while to pull my skinny jeans down and get the condoms and then motion to me and back to me. I just propped myself up and kept looking at him as he kept motioning the condom back and forth.

“Man, I really don’t know. I’m playing the innocent virgin here.” I smirked as he just rolled his eyes, opening the wrapper. “I take it, I’ll continue playing the innocent virgin then.”

“Whatever you want to call yourself, dear Miles.” He laughed. 

I just looked back at him, feeling a bit too nervous and tense at the same time until he had kissed me again and I wondered if I had been the only bloke in this world being so fucking anxious of having someone else entirely pressed against me and pushing me much forwards and taking me entirely. I wondered how would it even feel to then fuck Jamie, but I guess the point was that it would happen in any way again and again

Again and again

I just looked back at him, as I pulled his pants down, leaving them halfway as I traced my hands back up and since I had gotten a green light, I kissed him and pressed my fingers against his chest, pulling them, pinching them, causing Jamie to moan and trying to push the fact that I didn’t want anyone on my chest just yet, that soon enough I’d have him entirely all over my body, just in a bit-

“Are you okay, Miles?” And he stopped as we both looked at each other. I just nodded,a bit embraced of confessing that I had been scared of ever mentioning my dysphoria, the fact that I’d read enough trans men hooking up on Grindr and stopping halfway wasn’t helping at all, because just like them I had no idea how it would feel with this partner or how it would feel at all and by the end of the day sex becomes an act where your body is maximised to a ridiculous extent. And what else can remind me just as much that I don’t have the body that I wish, but even if my mind was anxious, I was still watching everything unravel in front of me and I still had wanted him immensely and I had just pushed it-

“Miles.”

I continued kissing him.

He pulled back and I guess I seem to forget that my expressions are easy to read by someone who has been watching me for the past few days and somehow ended up in my bed, knowing that he had wanted me far too much. 

The whole thought of someone finally wanting me was obscure and it was hard to even comprehend, even strings words together and actually make sex just sex, because by the end of it it was us making love somehow even if neither of us spoke on the subject. 

“Miles, you okay?” I just had to nod again, but instead he held his silence as an answer and I just slowly had to breathe out. 

Maybe I did want some nipple play after all. I could feel myself flush even if we were all already in a binder and underwear in front of each other. 

“Sorry... I guess I’m just freaking out about my body, no matter how cliche it sounds, I guess it has to be said.” I took a deep breath. “I just don’t know where exactly I stand with it and I don’t know-”

“If you’re not ready-”

“No, that’s the thing. I am, I fucking want you... I’m just scared that I don’t have the exact body-”

“I want your body. Well...” He quickly snapped back. “I want you, regardless of what body you have. I don’t want to sound fetishist or anything, it’s you I’m fucking and it doesn’t matter what you have or what you don’t have. I’ll touch you were you want me to and I won’t where you don’t.” 

I bit my lip.

I started taking off my binder, instantly feeling the weight of my breasts suddenly and the reminder that I had been wearing it for a good while starting to remind me as well as Jamie just compressing me with himself on top of me. 

“And I don’t think... I never played with my front hole anyway.” I blinked, staring at a blank spot. “Yeah.”

“Yeah. I guess I asked before and I just assumed you wanted back.” He said and this conversation even if it was awkward ended up being necessary because until you’re in it you won’t know what exactly you’ll feel like. What if you’re in a front hole sort of day? I guess those could happen. Anything could happen and it wasn’t even about detaching myself from my body but understanding that this is what I have now. It’s okay to love it, it’s okay to hate it. Jamie lowered his head to go for my chest, licking softly as I just arched my back, embarrassed from its mass and how cumbersome it had felt, but it still felt great and I couldn’t stop as he started sucking and groaning, letting his hand go down into my underwear and stroking me down there, I felt a bit embarrassed at first from how moist it had been and something I had understood he hadn’t touched before, but just looking at him made me realize that he had still wanted me.


	12. Chapter 12

My mind keeps ticking.

I want him desperately, even my thoughts are a big ice cream scoop of everything.

Now it was real, it wasn't blowing straw wrappers at each other while dirty talking with what we would do with each other anymore. It was something else, it was the real thing, no matter how bad it sounded, it seemed to be grasping us and pulling by the hair.

I couldn't help but even feel jealous of myself that I was getting laid somehow. Somehow he was into me and I kissed him, feeling his fingers tease me even more, even if it was clumsy and it was a bit all over the place. I felt myself heating up from the quick break we took from kissing and seeing him look so lustfully at me made me feel elevated and somehow a bit adored, as well as heavily dazed.

I recall all the disasters I've heard of where is your dick and how one isn't a man just because the junk isn't the one one desires. And somehow those things aren't on Jamie's lips. Somehow it so happens that it goes beyond attraction, that there is no foolish fear of being less gay. I still feel scared, but he's touching me and I don't even know where to hide, and how come this is happening, that I break everything by kissing him and holding it, before passion takes me for a whirl and I open my mouth, feeling his tongue against mine. I grind heavily against him, being more afraid of touching him back, feeling my whole body naked and vulnerable and somehow receiving pleasure rather than some sort of black despair. I kiss Jamie's neck, pushing him lower against the bed, kissing him downwards, as he closes his eyes and his hand is on the back of my head, guiding me lower.

I feel far too innocent than I wish I would've been. I wish I had some experience, but my body and my mouth travel far faster than I wish they would. I pull his underwear down, exposing him entirely in front of me. I'm far too desperate to tease him, so I just take him in my mouth, gripping his hips, taking in as much as an amateur can, Jamie pushing me to take more, so I gag lightly, getting turned on as I start booming him, in and out, always making sure to check him as he keeps his eyes closed and breathing heavily. I have no idea how can I even deliver pleasure when my only window into sex was porn and frankly my own hand and a handful of curiosity. And even then I had gotten close only with old boyfriends before I had known I was trans, and a few girls which I experimented with, thinking that perhaps the deviant side of me was somehow queer.

I try to keep my mind calm, even if it keeps racing and I get even more turned on, touching myself now as I give Jamie a blow job.

I fear so much

I take him out of my mouth, as Jamie now pins me down, kissing me again and I'm sure he can taste himself. The thought turns me on as he continues to stroke me again, clumsily as I grind against him.

Jamie sits up and asks me if I'm alright, which takes me a bit by surprise as I just sit up as well, kiss him and lay back down. He traces his hands down my body, takes the condom and breaks it open. I get a bit anxious from thinking, but I close my eyes, feeling Jamie's hand on my chest as he positions himself and he slides in a bit too fast, causing me to open my eyes fast and gasp. It's an odd feeling at first, as he doesn't even try to move, stroking my cheek, then he starts moving. I grasp onto him, my mind racing and my body now hitting waves of pleasure I had only toyed with and it's coming from a man who I crush on. I try not to think much of Alex, but he crosses my mind, how I had thought that somehow I would be having sex with him instead, but life goes in its bizarre ways.

Maybe it wasn't fated after all-

Jamie goes deeper now.

I moan, pulling him onto me, as he grabs me by my chin and kisses me again, his tongue rubbing heavily against my own, easing me and somehow driving me far more crazy and turned on. I pull him closer, breathing into his ear to go even deeper and harder, as he does so, licking my neck.

He starts going in and out, teasing me by doing it slower, but it only brings me closer to an orgasm. We both start moaning into each other's mouths, my hand now barely doing anything to myself, as I push myself further, Jamie now biting my neck-

I feel closer and closer, breathing heavily

I hear Jamie let out a very loud moan and I gasp, unravelling completely and moaning heavier as he keeps thrusting in me, as we both clutch onto the orgasm.

Eventually we both lose energy and Jamie stops, collapsing on top of me, as I kiss his forehead and proceed back to my heavy breathing.

It feel even more surreal as I stare at the ceiling, now on my back and Jamie on his side, canoodling me.

For the first time in years I dream of a woman, they come to me rarely in my dreams and when I was growing up there were a handful and they were sexual dreams, which looking back I just felt pressured into liking women or maybe sexuality is fluid to some extent. Who will know what actually was written there in the past? Who knows what motivates our dreams?

She looks at me and I see her, she's a nun with black hair. Besides her I see completely nothing, she gives me the shivers as she leans heavily close to me. She makes sure that there is no one left and then I see the man engulfed in flames again, his hair sparkling and roaring. She tries to put her hands to the flames and stops there, as if warming up, before the other man just stares at her, confused, as she then proceeds to take off the cross she is wearing around her frail neck. She looks a bit too skinny and underfed, but she doesn't look like your average nun with a bit of blush on her cheeks and dark lipstick, maybe her outfit is the only thing which gives it away and it could be a Halloween costume as well. Soon enough I can start seeing the outlines of things, I see that we're in the same room and the man engulfed by flames leans and eventually sits near Jamie, who seems to be barely breathing.

“He's a sight, isn't he?” He asks in a very familiar and deep voice, looking at me through his red eyes and pale skin. He doesn't dare to touch Jamie, but he makes sure that he keeps looking at me. The girl stands up and starts doing a cartwheel in the end of the bedroom, nearly knocking down the television to which she nearly apologizes for.

That's when Alex knocks in and appears in his famous jacket. He doesn't seem to notice me, but he heads in and sits at the end of the bed, as if waiting for something to happen. But that's the problem with Alex, as if he knows, he does nothing, as if he knows what is happening outside of everything, he does nothing. He lets the man and the woman exchange looks and the man throws some dice to roll and offers a game of yatzee.

“Miles, what game of yatzee?” And I hear a following laughter, as I open my eyes and I didn't even realize that I had fallen asleep and the same had apparently happened to Jamie, as we both wake up to snow going behind the window, greeting us as the new season tips it's hat to us. It's pitch black outside and makes me go under the covers as Jamie laughs at me. I just shush at him, as if closing my eyes again would help the snow go away.

He just strokes my hair and I wonder what else he is doing, so I open my eyes to see the white speckles of snow contrast against the dark days of winter tiptoeing on us. But sleep seems to take over me and drag me by the collar again, so I just allow myself to sleep, thinking of places which will slip away from me once I visit them because time had touched them.

When life gives you a calm routine, it's only one's head left to mess it all up, that's when the depression acts up, anxiety dawns on you and everything seems to be falling apart inside. I don't even realize how thankful I should be for the days where I wake up with Jamie by my side and somehow I dread showing up to his at Jack's, where he holds one room which has clothes scattered, a bunch of books opened and turned over on random pages with scribbles on them and some cut-outs on the walls. It wasn't the room I was scared of, but rather Jack who seemed to intimidate me somehow. He would seem calm, but once I saw him drop a plate he was carrying and he just continued to stare at the shards until Jamie had snapped him out of it and that had been it for me, that was the only odd thing, but his calmness which was a heavy contrast to Alex's mood seemed to be enough.

Alex wasn't bitter, he just seemed sad, drinking tea quietly and inviting us over even if we ourselves didn't declare anything, he still called us boyfriends and neither of us budged on the names we were given. Only after several nights Jamie asked me and I just said that things were taking their course, so perhaps we were boyfriends after all. I kept pondering on Jack, who was quiet, but in a different, calm way, as if observing everything which was happening through a lens, maybe he was at a game of chess and was just watching it, one of the weird people who do that eventually.

I wondered, as if I were sitting opposite Alex on a long table, how did he feel that now I was dating Jamie and he had been discarded? How did he feel indeed? And how would all of this continue unravelling, how come love triangles would always repeat themselves with one being left alone and none had a nice polyamorous ending which would suffice to all? I wondered if I could ever ask him that and how come with all the dreams I didn't end up with Alex and he would still come to my dreams and we would talk.

But depression becomes more than a filthy pillow to sleep on, it just keeps dragging on and on if you look upwards. I keep pondering and recalling how odd it is that the world still moves regardless if you do anything at all. That you can barely ever influence anything, you can't change anything other than your own small moves and on some days that is never comforting, but rather alarming.

Winter seems to be feeding us slowly by the spoon and summer feels no longer near as the weather just gets worse just by looking outside and seeing the snow.

Not thinking about Alex is hard. Alex was like a lost love I couldn't get over. It didn't matter, he would always come back swinging in thoughts and bumping into him was making it worse and seeing him trade his leather jacket for a coat, but he would wear it inside sometimes when the heating would be bad.

How can you know which wishes will come true and which won't?

How do you know when you have fallen in love and why you won't act on it?

I end up standing near Alex's door, winter fully talking over Stockholm with yesterday's storm and the suicide which made all the trains freeze and me and Jamie were left on a station, which I had never been before. I couldn't even recall the name and all of us had to wait outside, in the snow waiting for the buses to come and pick us up. It made me think about Alex, whilst I was warm in Jamie's arms. It made me think far too much. I found myself roaming with boredom because I had settled already. It was an odd feeling, but it was demented.

I remember that once we got on the bus, I had fallen asleep and through the whole dream I could feel Jamie's fingers going through my hair.

I think there are the two types of people in love: those who throw you under the bus and those who don't. Sometimes it so happens that you get the same type in a relationship, sometimes it's the opposite. Despite all the reassurance sometimes I still dream of myself as a woman, scared that no one else will see me as male. I was back to my closeted days with longer hair and I was in a relationship with Alex, he was still wearing the jacket only know it was more worn out. He told me that I should try stealing some office supplies from the store. And once I was going outside, he grabbed me by the backpack I was carrying apparently, telling me that men will throw the women under the bus, making me jerk and look back at him, confused.

The store owners came back only to accuse me of stealing. I said that I had money to pay for said supplies, thinking that 400 kroner would be enough. But they just laughed at me, saying that it wasn't enough. Ironically it was what I had in my wallet in real life as well. I have no idea why couldn't I pay with card either, so Alex just looked at me, before asking if they would take a cheque, ignoring that he had been laughing all this damn time. They took his cheque and that had been it.

I ended up jerking, causing Jamie to hold me and stroke me further, calming me down as I just looked at him bewildered. It wasn't great to be misgendered in a dream and I knew that day dreams meant nothing unlike night ones. But I just remained silent for the rest of the trip, wondering why the hell did we live in the last station. I stopped at the we and just looked up to see now Jamie dozing off from the long ride, as if the train would be any faster.

In the end I just shiver and decide to ring on Alex's door bell, because if you're not the one to confront your nightmares and dreams, there will be no one left. He ditched his leather jacket, so I'm surprised regardless to see him in a stripy shirt, which looks very naval and he just invites me inside.

I don't even know how to approach the subject or how to even tell him such and where do we go from there, but then maybe it's just me being eager to make things happen. Jamie had ditched his fear of Alex long ago and I was left with a boyfriend. It felt as if I wouldn't do anything, nothing would actually happen. I shouldn't be doing this over my boyfriend's back either. But I can't deny now, that I'm juggling both of them and I seem to be in a haze of confusion when it came to both men and it was flattering because I was transgender after all and that was hard to bite into, it was hard to understand that I would somehow manage to lure two men in. I always thought myself to be too simple with my music taste and my freelancing, because that was what was dug into my skull by my relatives. They judged me being a freelancer in the small times that I would call them but even then I wondered if I should reconcile, like that article by a trans woman saying that you should still send cards because they'll know that you sent them off.

Alex makes me lemon tea as usual and I sit down. I can see that he is surprised and relieved that Jamie is not by my side, that he is sleeping after a long night of me working and him just browsing the internet. I can't understand how this idle togetherness is getting under my skin already even if I know that the answer is because I can't understand the dreams and I don't want to leave it alone at all. I know that I want all the answers, and how come Alex and Jamie split is also echoing in my head, the curiosity is something I don't know how to deal with as well. I can't understand how either of them choose someone else when they had been together for a long while and then Alex had cheated, because it just feels to me that there was something else, but that could be because I can't justify Alex's actions in my mind.

I blow on my tea, not expecting it to cool down so fast. I don't know how to speak and I have a boyfriend, maybe I should've just left it and let some love flourish and I know that Jack had called us cute the one time we went over, as he watched us carefully. I could see everything through his curls and I wondered what was his big deal. But that could've also been a question I could ask Alex, and how I don't want to ask Jamie further makes me feel even shittier. But instead I just make myself comfortable and make sure that I am as opposite as I can be of my dreamer boy, who has been in my dreams longer than I have known myself.

Maybe I should've left him alone.

But my mind has a voice of its own and it seems direct from the heart.


	13. Chapter 13

Alex just shakes his head. 

“Sorry, I had a horrible hookup.” He pauses. And I just stare at him, confused on what is going on and all of the courage I've once had is long gone. I feel regretful that the topic is changed even from my mind and now that I must be compassionate and that is what is wrong with me. I shift from one man to another in hope of finding some fulfilment and love. But Alex is going on in his wave and I don't interrupt him further. “Basically it was my first proper hookup, y'know...”

He doesn't flinch as he takes a sip of the hot tea, looking right past me on his round table, standing tall. 

“Grindr and all such finesse. I even had to go quite a fair number of stations away, because I figured that he was worth it. He seemed nice and all I did was trust him in that. Basically it all lasted rather little, he came in me twice and that was it. He didn't bother to make me come. He just... showered, went out in his underwear and said he was done for the day. That was fucking it.” Alex cringes, closing his eyes. He opens his brown eyes, still bewildered from the whole action which was happening on him. “Basically I'm talking about it to everyone, I really feel used and uncomfortable... So you came in time.”

He speaks in long pauses. 

“I'm happy it was you, not Jamie. He would've judged me. Not to mention I got a call from my mother.” He quickly scans me, as if trying to find whether to reveal much more information but I see that he's really tired, so Alex closes his eyes again. “I've forgiven her.”

He doesn't state why. 

“So... she asks me, how are you Alexander, and all I can say is that I'm fine. I can't really tell my mother no matter how stained the relationship is that a bad hookup had managed to really ruin me for a good while.” I let him speak. I listen. “I'm so sorry. I just really feel horrible.”

“I'm sorry.” I pause. Maybe he isn't the man of my dreams and neither am I of his? “It's not your fault that he came within minutes. He was just a really bad fuck. I've never... had hookups. I'm trans, I think there aren't too many men who would sleep with me.”

“Jamie sleeps with you.” Alex says gingerly, more at the fact that I am fucking his ex and I just feel taken back and a bit protective of my sand watch boyfriend, which I seem to be tilting over whenever the time runs out for my patience. I don't notice as I drum my fingers on the table. I feel annoyed and I know that he's hurt. I know that he's hurt. I stand up, looking at my tea.

“But I dream of you.” It's dramatic and we lock eyes. “I expected Jamie to be transphobic, since he's Brazilian. I stereotyped him.”

I babble. 

Alex just crooks his head to the side, looking at me. 

“What do you mean, that you dream of me?” The words are so simple but he takes time to choose them and speaks in pauses. 

I really feel like leaving even if he feels like crap from his actually shitty hookup. But this seems to be the best slap in the face and wake up call. We stand with the round table between us. 

“I've always dreamt of you.” I clutch the table. “I always have. Ever since I was a child. You in your One for the Road jacket. I always wanted to meet you and I did. That's why I talked to you. That's why I became friends with Jamie. That's not why I slept with him. That's why I made you my friend. I wanted to know why you stalked my dreams. I wanted to know you.”

Alex looks at me like a madman. He looks around, as if there could be another clone of him. Instead he stares at me, deeply deeply confused. I don't know what else to say, so I just excuse myself, from what I understand like his hookup made him leave. I just want to go back to the sleeping Jamie and feel some regret, as if it were my hookup and I had decided to come back to my loving boyfriend which would make me come every damn time and never feel used again. 

I take too long to find the keys and Jamie opens the door, glancing jealously at Alex's unlocked door but doesn't say anything, just lets me in to my apartment. I briefly think how thankful I am to have found an apartment in Stockholm with the ongoing crisis. It's weird to see the world fall and somehow find a safe haven. I just glance at Jamie, who decides to go barefoot to Alex's, most likely to ask him if I were over, which ends up with Alex going to close the door and the two previous lovers meet. 

“I had the worst hookup ever.” I think I would be complaining as well, but not as straightforwardly. Jamie just looks rather confused, glancing back at me and shrugging, as if telling Alex to go on and we all stand outside Alex's apartment as he tells the tale once more, of the guy not touching him and how now he is just driving himself up the wall with frustration that he even decided to have a hookup which ended so badly, with a guy he mocked as awkward in his head before they got to the bedroom. I feel so innocent, compared to both of them and how shyly Jamie slips that he regrets sleeping with Jack, which causes Alex to state that at least it wasn't a bad hookup and Jack had made him come, to which Jamie just agreed. 

“But we all have our sex regrets. It's like sex tapes, they're all nearly filled with regret.” I felt a bit uncomfortable, wondering if I were a regret, but at that moment Jamie put his arm around my shoulder and rubbed it. I wondered what else did he mean and would I eventually end up wrapped up in that pile, I wondered. I couldn't help but think, is a regretful hookup worse than a bad relationship? At least the person didn't deceive you, so the question was what was the worse by the end of the day? But I didn't ask that aloud, instead I heard Alex slap his face and say how during any sort of one time flings he would compare the boys to different things, one had a fox face and this one had a stingray dick, the tip was far too big compared to the rest. Jamie couldn't help but laugh and say that he would never even utter that aloud, I said that I would. 

“What if I should leak the nudes I sent, because self-leaking is better, right?” Jamie slapped his face, as Alex asked it, causing me to be a bit lost between the two men. At the same time I felt sad that Alex spoke about his hookup instead of asking what were the dreams between me and him, but I could see that he kept looking at me, holding his soft brown gaze every time he'd decide to glance any way near my way. 

“No, Alex, no one is going to leak anything. Specifically stingray dick.” And Jamie burst into laughter, causing Alex to go red, watching Jamie cover his eyes and keep laughing a bit too long, as if he was hiding something. Maybe he was far too curious why did I go to Alex's after us bonding so well. 

I couldn't help but wonder or rather if I knew a couple, I would always picture them fucking, just to know how it was, how it looked like and for some reason it would give me some sort of insight, so I glanced at both my lover and his previous lover, picturing them groaning against each other. It was even something close to a sexual fantasy of mine, but far too sinful to fully branch out in mind. 

I look at both of them and the problem is that I've still got bad days, days when I wonder what if I am doing the wrong thing. I feel as if I'll never be a man by looking at them. These thoughts specifically followed me as I would think deeply about coming out to my parents and I would lay in bed, tucked in and asking myself why would I just give up everything and the desires seemed short-sighted. 

Sometimes I feel like what if it is not my story to tell when it happens between two men because I get so insecure about who I am, whenever I paint, I just understand that the discrimination I face is different, but is it really when I had my parents yell that if I were to have children I shouldn't because gay men should never have children since there is no mother?

And what is the role of a mother?

Why is it so crucial?

It reminds me of silence, a blank canvas and a ticking clock. It just happens. 

Same goes for the father and never will I deny my love for them or the memories I've shared, but the questions drag on as the relationship is odd just with the fact that I am living my life as who I am rather than someone who they would prefer. 

I think again of gay men and I happen to be one. Is it because of the discrimination? Is that all takes for me to be a man?

Is hatred the thing which defines us?

I knew that if I were to ask Jamie that question he would just soothe me, depends on where we were, taking my hand and rubbing his thumb against the back of my palm. It's odd to see how quick he picked up on my dysphoria and how he would pay attention to see what to say, even if he was lost at it in the beginning and it never occurred to me that it could turn out to be so small as if it were an insecurity, even if it feels as big as the world to me. 

I don't know where the desire to experience someone else or something else comes from, it becomes something which consumes you and it's always a matter of time before I'll give in. I keep thinking of Alex and his jacket and how he's no longer wearing it because winter is upon us and he's got this cute coat with anchor buttons which I don't know where he got from and everyone seems so nicely coated and I tell myself that I'm thankful that puffy jackets are gone until I go out on the street and I regret so many people's fashion choices. 

I happen to deal with so much regret on Jamie's behalf, feeling that sooner or later I'll taste Alex. 

But then he's the one on the cards. 

What happens to Jamie? Is he the lost card?

Eventually Jamie and Alex come to a conclusion that the guilt will soon vanish, so Alex waves it off, even if he doesn't feel any better. 

Sometimes I wonder if I could go back and retell all my story, at least to myself, to hear myself speak it and see myself with longer hair, trying on makeup, enjoying dolls and ask myself was I really happy or was it because I hadn't known better? I ended up spending my teenage years watching superhero movies because I had missed on them, watching them and confusing my parents. Pulling my hair into ponytails until I had the courage to cut it, feeling too annoyed at the feeling of hair against my neck. 

I rub my eyes, way too sad to wake Jamie up even if he suffers from insomnia as well, so when I turn around I see him staring at me, even if he's clearly trying to sleep. So we talk a bit and both agree that tea would be beneficial for both of us. I make passionflower tea for both, as Jamie seems to be in a listening mode. I wonder if Alex would ever fit as well, but I keep such thoughts to myself.

I should be the one wary of the guilt. 

I'm in love with another man and it doesn't seem like a love triangle which will ever resolve properly in two men in love with me. 

Sometimes I wonder if I'll just fall into a nightmare which will take me away, as I hold the hot tea in my hands, never leaving my gaze off Jamie's dark green eyes. It makes me think of how common green eyes should be there, making mine look so plain and I guess his look plain where he comes from. 

I always feel like crying but the testosterone had made it impossible for me to cry and I think of that everytime I inject it, hearing my mom's words of dissaproval and wondering how much happier would I had been as a straight woman. But I wouldn't. I'd be lost and the sex scared me always. 

Jamie keeps looking at me and I don't know where has my love gone, how come it was wrapped up and now the wrapper is empty. 

The problem is that humans are never satisfied, that's why we go on and every day can never pause, that's why we get so many problems to resolve and so many misfortunes. 

We never confessed, we played with affection and attraction. 

If I never try, I will never know. 

I've talked to myself. 

I take the cup of tea and invite Jamie to the balcony as he smokes.

Maybe he's the one I love. 

Maybe. 

I kiss him and I feel too much, but as soon as it ends Alex crawls on the borders. I'm like youth, I feel like a teenager again eager and scared of marriage because it should be so far away. 

“I'm sorry I'm too estranged by my own thoughts.” I tell Jamie, watching and as if searching for a sunrise but the world is too dark and we are engulfed in black. I don't know what else to tell him as I feel like I've kissed the cigarette as well, as Jamie just drops the ashes off the rails, leaning against the rails. I know that he's got his own thoughts, his own doubts and his own love for Alex which was terminated so abruptly and I wonder if I will be the one to commit the same thing and I can only imagine being on top of Alex, him with his eyes closed, mouth open and I want him. 

I even start thinking of Nick, wondering how he looks like and recalling when I just moved in how I would look at photos of him. I wondered about everyone else, how would they react knowing that who they had kissed is actually a trans man?

After Nick I had felt that I would never even have a gay man look at me, but I guess it varies from country to country. I would miss him so much that I would try to find him in strangers or I felt if I could go to the airport that I would find him there and we spoke briefly when I moved to Sweden but soon enough we stopped and it just made my heart ache. What if we had continued talking? Because I had known so many secrets from him. Maybe somehow he would realize that I was just as much of a man as anyone else was?

“Sorry.” And Jamie is watching me as he's about to finish smoking and I try to collect all my thoughts in order to properly speak to him, but I don't even know where to start. My mind just keeps shattering itself and it's as if I can't even trust myself, which is desperately true. 

But what if it's just because I can't talk to anyone at all? Would I manage to speak to Alex about it? Would I manage to talk to myself about it?

I don't like to think of talking to myself because I always imagine myself sitting opposite and I don't like the look of myself. 

I feel as if the only solution is to reintroduce myself and start talking about everything I've ever gone through. I keep looking at Jamie, as the only movement is his dragging his cigarette. What if it will be Jamie all along?

“What's bothering you, Miles?” He asks me finally and I don't really drop his gaze. I try to at least organize my thoughts and try to understand what can I even speak of, but nothing comes out of my mouth at first and I feel desperately tired. 

What's wrong with being a woman?

Was asked by my mother and I could see her lips uttering those words.

“Memories.” And I wish I could somehow end with this, both of talking and everything, but nothing ever ends, life goes on with it's twists and turns. “I just... remembered how my mom went ballistic that I didn't want to be a woman anymore.”

I smirk. 

“I've always been a man. I just didn't know how to tell it.” I shrug. “I was way too scared. I thought that I would be sent to a psychiatrist to be told that everything I think is wrong, that it's a phase just like mom is saying.” 

I know he's listening and it's odd not to be talking to a wall anymore. 

“It's not even just mom, it's as if everything has an issue with me... Besides you, Alex and Jack. Maybe some other people.” I shrug. “But it's as if everyone has an issue with trans people, it's so bad that no one flinches when there is a bad transphobic joke on television, no one bats an eyelash if it's directed at trans men.

I don't know.”

He just pulls me closer to him. I try to listen but instead feeling his thin shirt under my fingertips becomes far more soothing than words of how ignorant people are and how I shouldn't pay attention and by the end of the day fight for my rights, just like we all gay men do. It makes me feel together again.


	14. Chapter 14

“They say that if you die in a dream you'll lead a long and healthy life.” Jamie blew the smoke out, saying it. “I never dreamt of myself dying.”

I love ghost stories, back when I lived in the UK we visited Scotland once and in a castle they told the story of men playing cards deep into the night, when it turned into Sunday and it were forbidden to do so but they kept on playing. Then the royalty said out loud that he wishes that they could play forever and the Devil overheard them. They still proceed to play there in a locked out room to this day, when if you're drunk enough you'll hear them.

They say so many things about meeting the Devil. I actually wonder if everyone would meet him sometime. I wonder if there are people who don't, once you meet him you feel that everyone has crossed paths with him. 

The flaming man shows up again and this time I recognize his face. But the lady is next to him again, holding a chain which goes under her feet, disappearing into the ground. 

There's so many myths to tell and encounters that I just stare. 

Eventually I notice Alex in his jacket. 

“Sometimes there is no explanation.” I hear the Devil say. I don't even ask why I've dreamt of Alex and it all feels like a long lost dialogue where I had never dialled, but the receiver is in my hand and I'm listening to the talk show host asking me all the questions. 

His hair darkens lightly and I see curls and his pale face. Jack just smiles at me. I blink and he's back to the fiery red hair. If I imagine long enough it changes. 

Maybe I don't believe in myself. 

Maybe I'll never know if my parents would've accepted me. 

If there aren't any loose ends what's the point in living?

There's a terribly foul taste in my mouth. 

“Would you want Alex-” He starts talking, but I quickly shake my head. I look down, as if seeing more fire beneath me and it makes quite a shocking disaster to know that somehow hell is real. I wonder why don't we get to see the flip-side and experience God then? Why do we all speak of demons and the Devil? He goes on. “In exchange for Jamie?”

But that doesn't make sense.

“Of course it does. Then he's completely mine.”

Maybe he's just a demon, not the Devil, I start thinking but I get no reply. Instead Jamie is sitting opposite Alex and they exchange cigarettes. 

I thought I'd see the man who Alex cheated on Jamie with. 

I was never a good person.

I look at Alex, he's in his jacket. He doesn't have paint on his knees or anywhere. 

There was this good TV show where the ending is that the guy agrees to give up his wife to never end up in jail. I terribly liked it as a teenager and I watched it a few times, always amazed by the plot twist.

I think of all the people I have known and Jamie has glass eyes, his dark green now a much lighter colour. 

We've all never loved. 

Alex just looks at me and his quiff is fully intact. It's not messy or unkempt as it has started growing in the past months. 

“My mother killed my father, if that makes you feel any better.” Jamie just nods, looking past Alex who he says it. “That's why I can't trust people.” 

He stands up and walks towards me and he smiles, he looks much younger than what the days have given me him. 

We all fall in love with a form. 

His eyes are just as glossy as Jamie's only in his chocolate brown. 

I feel like there is nothing left to tell. 

I sit down with my legs crossed and hold my head in my hands. Alex strokes my back. I ease into his touch, far too much-

Sometimes we don't get a choice or it becomes a split second, where I look up and smile at him, that it's enough. 

I'd never forgive myself. 

Jamie looks at me through his glass eyes. I can see him squirm as he gets taken away but we all get bad decisions. 

I wake up alone.

I search every room of the place and even run out in a loose shirt, with no binder across the floor to Alex's. I start banging heavily on his door, screaming that Jamie's gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since it's the last chapter, I decided to drop a backstory here. It's actually one of my most missed stories, because once I finished it, I kept thinking how much I had wanted to just keep writing, that perhaps I should go back and add some filler chapters. The characters kept living in my mind and I truly miss them. My life has changed greatly ever since I finished the story and it just shows a part of life which has now passed. I missed all the backstory and I've actually got a prequel on my writing blog about Jamie and Alex called Start Finding Passion on graspthesanity.blogspot.com which I had written while I ws writing Blue/Jacket. My characters grew to an extent I didn't really believe I could do. 
> 
> I always was conflicted about the ending, wondering what should I really do with the love triangle as much as the story progressed, even if I decided to stick to an old decision of mine. I like surreal stories and supernatural themes. I kept this chapter hidden away probably for a year, because I had thought that people lost interest and I'm happy to see that isn't the case. I had moved on and started writing other projects, still missing everyone in Blue/Jacket. I don't think I'll be able to get the raw emotion I gave with Miles being trans and I discovered myself being trans as I was writing this story. I told a lot on the subject which I might not bare my soul about again, because of dysphoria. 
> 
> Jamie's character grew to a huge extent which I wasn't intending at all. His backstory and his whole character is something I wish I would write about again sometime and maybe I will have something similar in the future. 
> 
> Alex was based on fate and dreams which I've had, which lead to strange things and the last chapter, let it give you an eerie feeling about it, so I won't speak further on that matter. His backstory was also something I kept quiet about for the whole novel, which was hard to do. 
> 
> The story was supposed to go a different path, but it ended like this and I wonder if I will ever pick it up the way it was supposed to go which was darker than it already is. 
> 
> Well, here it is, out in the world and I just am proud of it, despite all the fear I've had of revealing this last chapter and sharing the whole story as is. 
> 
> Thank you everyone for your support on its original run and the last chapters which were only available on ao3. Thank you everyone here on ao3 which gave it a second breath of life. I hope the characters will live on, like they do in my mind. 
> 
> Follow my current writing at graspthesanity.wordpress.com

**Author's Note:**

> After writing the last chapter, which is currently unpublished, I decided it's time to share this really beloved story of mine on AO3. The last chapter will be published both on the blog and AO3 as all chapters will be up. 
> 
> For the backstory to each chapter, the prequel to understanding Alex and more milex there's http://graspthesanity.blogspot.com


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